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“Don’t be a d—-d fool,” said the man quickly. “Thar’s fifty agin’ you down thar. But why in h-ll didn’t you wipe out old Nixon when you had such a good chance?”

“Wipe out old Nixon?” repeated Ruth.

“Yes; just now, when you had him covered.”

“What!”

The bar-keeper turned quickly upon Ruth, stared at him, and then suddenly burst into a fit of laughter. “Well, I’ve knowed you two were twins, but damn me if I ever thought I’d be sold like this!” And he again burst into a roar of laughter.

“What do you mean?” demanded Ruth savagely.

“What do I mean?” returned the barkeeper. “Why, I mean this. I mean that your brother Rand, as you call him, he’z bin–for a young feller, and a pious feller–doin’ about the tallest kind o’ fightin’ to-day that’s been done at the Ferry. He laid out that ar Kanaka Joe and two of his chums. He was pitched into on your quarrel, and he took it up for you like a little man. I managed to drag him off, up yer in the hazel-bush for safety, and out you pops, and I thought you was him. He can’t be far away. Halloo! There they’re comin’; and thar’s the doctor, trying to keep them back!”

A crowd of angry, excited faces, filled the road suddenly; but before them Dr. Duchesne, mounted, and with a pistol in his hand, opposed their further progress.

“Back in the bush!” whispered the barkeeper. “Now’s your time!”

But Ruth stirred not. “Go you back,” he said in a low voice, “find Rand, and take him away. I will fill his place here.” He drew his revolver, and stepped into the road.

A shout, a report, and the spatter of red dust from a bullet near his feet, told him he was recognized. He stirred not; but another shout, and a cry, “There they are–BOTH of ’em!” made him turn.

His brother Rand, with a smile on his lip and fire in his eye, stood by his side. Neither spoke. Then Rand, quietly, as of old, slipped his hand into his brother’s strong palm. Two or three bullets sang by them; a splinter flew from the blacksmith’s shed: but the brothers, hard gripping each other’s hands, and looking into each other’s faces with a quiet joy, stood there calm and imperturbable.

There was a momentary pause. The voice of Dr. Duchesne rose above the crowd.

“Keep back, I say! keep back! Or hear me!–for five years I’ve worked among you, and mended and patched the holes you’ve drilled through each other’s carcasses–Keep back, I say!–or the next man that pulls trigger, or steps forward, will get a hole from me that no surgeon can stop. I’m sick of your bungling ball practice! Keep back!–or, by the living Jingo, I’ll show you where a man’s vitals are!”

There was a burst of laughter from the crowd, and for a moment the twins were forgotten in this audacious speech and coolly impertinent presence.

“That’s right! Now let that infernal old hypocritical drunkard, Mat Nixon, step to the front.”

The crowd parted right and left, and half pushed, half dragged Nixon before him.

“Gentlemen,” said the doctor, “this is the man who has just shot at Rand Pinkney for hiding his daughter. Now, I tell you, gentlemen, and I tell him, that for the last week his daughter, Mornie Nixon, has been under my care as a patient, and my protection as a friend. If there’s anybody to be shot, the job must begin with me!”

There was another laugh, and a cry of “Bully for old Sawbones!” Ruth started convulsively, and Rand answered his look with a confirming pressure of his hand.

“That isn’t all, gentlemen: this drunken brute has just shot at a gentleman whose only offence, to my knowledge, is, that he has, for the last week, treated her with a brother’s kindness, has taken her into his own home, and cared for her wants as if she were his own sister.”