“After that”—­Sandy spread his arms largely—­“it was go-as-you-please.  Sam and me was the only ones that kept out, near as I can recollect, and when it thinned up a bit, you had Aleck down and was pounding the liver outa him, and Big Jim was whanging away at you, and Rock was clawin’ Jim in the back of the neck, and you was all kickin’ like bay steers in brandin’ time.  I reached in under the pile and dragged you out by one leg and left the rest of ’em fighting.  They never seemed to miss you none.”  He grinned.  “Jim commenced to bump Aleck’s head up and down on the floor instead of you—­and I knew he didn’t have nothing against Aleck.”

“Bill—­”

“Bill, he’d quit right in the start.”  Sandy’s grin became a laugh.  “Seems like pore old Bill always gits in bad when you commence on your third pint.  You wasn’t through, though, seems like.  You was going to start in at the beginning and en-core the whole performance, and you started out after Bill.  Bill, he was lookin’ for a hole big enough to crawl into by that time.  But you run into the preacher.  And you licked him to a fare-you-well and had him crying real tears before I or anybody else could stop you.”

“What’d I lick him for?” Ford inquired in a tone of deep discouragement.

Sandy’s indeterminate, blue-gray eyes rounded with puzzlement.

“Search me,” he repeated automatically.  But later he inadvertently shed enlightenment.  He laughed, bending double, and slapping his thigh at the irresistible urge of a mental picture.

“Thought I’d die,” he gasped.  “Me and Sam was watching from the door.  You had the preacher by the collar, shakin’ him, and once in awhile liftin’ him clean off the ground on the toe of your boot; and you kept saying:  ’A sober man, and a preacher—­and you’d marry that girl to a fellow like me!’ And then biff!  And he’d let out a squawk.  ‘A drinkin’, fightin’, gamblin’ son-of-a-gun like me, you swine!’ you’d tell him.  And when we finally pulled you loose, he picked up his hat and made a run for it.”

Ford meditated gloomily.  “I’ll lick him again, and lick him when I’m sober, by thunder!” he promised grimly.  “Who was he, do you know?”

“No, I don’t.  Little, dried-up geezer with a nose like a kit-fox’s and a whine to his voice.  He won’t come around here no more.”

The door opened gustily and a big fellow with a skinned nose and a whimsical pair of eyes looked in, hesitated while he stared hard at Ford, and then entered and shut the door by the simple method of throwing his shoulders back against it.

“Hello, old sport—­how you comin’?” he cried cheerfully.  “Kinda wet for makin’ calls, but when a man’s loaded down with a guilty conscience—­” He sighed somewhat ostentatiously and pulled forward a chair rejuvenated with baling-wire braces between the legs, and a cowhide seat.  “What’s that cookin’—­coffee, or sheep-dip?” he inquired facetiously of Sandy, though his eyes dwelt solicitously upon Ford’s bowed head.  He leaned forward and slapped Ford in friendly fashion upon the shoulder.