“I’ve got you now, Moore,” he said, hoarse and low.  Stripped of all pretense, he showed the ungovernable nature of his temper.  His face grew corded and black.  The hand he thrust out shook like a leaf.  “You smooth-tongued liar!  I’m on to your game.  I know you’d put her against me.  I know you’d try to win her—­less than a week before her wedding-day....  But it’s not for that I’m going to beat hell out of you!  It’s because I hate you!  Ever since I can remember my father held you up to me!  And he sent me to—­to—­he sent me away because of you.  By God! that’s why I hate you!”

All that was primitive and violent and base came out with strange frankness in Belllounds’s tirade.  Only when calm could his mind be capable of hidden calculation.  The devil that was in him now seemed rampant.

“Belllounds, you’re mighty brave to stack up this way against a one-legged man,” declared the cowboy, with biting sarcasm.

“If you had two club-feet I’d only be the gladder,” yelled Belllounds, and swinging his arm, he slapped Moore so that it nearly toppled him over.  Only the injured foot, coming down hard, saved him.

When Columbine saw that, and then how Wilson winced and grew deathly pale, she uttered a low cry, and she seemed suddenly rooted to the spot, weak, terrified at what was now inevitable, and growing sick and cold and faint.

“It’s a damn lucky thing for you I’m not packing a gun,” said Moore, grimly.  “But you knew—­or you’d never hit me—­you coward.”

“I’ll make you swallow that,” snarled Belllounds, and this time he swung his fist, aiming a heavy blow at Moore.

Then the cowboy whirled aloft the heavy crutch.  “If you hit at me again I’ll let out what little brains you’ve got.  God knows that’s little enough!...  Belllounds, I’m going to call you to your face—­before this girl your bat-eyed old man means to give you.  You’re not drunk.  You’re only ugly—­mean.  You’ve got a chance now to lick me because I’m crippled.  And you’re going to make the most of it.  Why, you cur, I could come near licking you with only one leg.  But if you touch me again I’ll brain you!...  You never were any good.  You’re no good now.  You never will be anything but Buster Jack—­half dotty, selfish as hell, bull-headed and mean!...  And that’s the last word I’ll ever waste on you.”

“I’ll kill you!” bawled Belllounds, black with fury.

Moore wielded the crutch menacingly, but as he was not steady on his feet he was at the disadvantage his adversary had calculated upon.  Belllounds ran around the cowboy, and suddenly plunged in to grapple with him.  The crutch descended, but to little purpose.  Belllounds’s heavy onslaught threw Moore to the ground.  Before he could rise Belllounds pounced upon him.