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dining room, kept her place, her head bowed on her hands. She heard every blow, and she winced with them. There was nothing she could do but let it go on. Paul Scott was a man born for battle, and he had to fight until he was top man or broken.
    Paul felt his fury cool. He was conscious of the filling room; he heard shouts as troopers came in to mingle with the miners. He rushed Stebbins, taking punishment and dealing it, until Stebbins was against a table. Paul felt the blood dripping off his chin, tasted it warm and salty in his mouth. Stebbins was bleeding, too. He slid around the table, collided with a chair and fell over it backwards.
    Paul turned, puzzled that Miles did not come at him from the rear. Through sweat-glazed eyes he saw that Alonzo Finch held a gun in his hand, daring anyone to make odds, holding Miles back out of the way. Before Paul could grasp just what was happening, he felt a boot heel crash into his back, sending him gasping and staggering to his knees.
    He braced himself on his knuckles, sucking to get back his breath. Then Stebbins was riding his back, forcing him down. Stebbins' hands were in his hair, lifting his head to smash his face against the floor.
    Before Stebbins could slam his face against the rough planks, Paul's lean body twisted, spun over, and he had his knees across Stebbins' chest and was looking down into Stebbins' bloody face. Methodically he pounded, bruised, battered that face until Stebbins stopped squirming.
    Then he rose unsteadily, shaking the sweat from his eyes. He raked his hand across his face, and it came away oily with blood. He focused his eyes carefully until he found Miles. The miners were cheering and stamping, paying off bets and making others on the next round. They recognized in Paul a fighter who finished a job or went down to defeat.
    Breathing like a leaky bellows, Paul said, "All right, Alonzo; let him go."
    Alonzo said, "Take a breather, Paul; you've earned it."
    "Let him go!" Paul repeated.
    Finch, a man to give another his head, shoved Miles roughly out on the floor. Miles came out unbalanced. He was still trying to find the balls of his feet when Paul hit him the first time. Miles went down close to Stebbins' prostrate form. Two men grabbed Stebbin's feet and pulled him off to one side.
    Miles lay for a moment, propped on an elbow, and a switch seemed to turn in his brain. He rose and charged, head low, fists battering.
    In the dining room, standing on one of the tables, Norah Young watched the fight, and it sickened her. Because Paul had sided a helpless old man, because he had done the right and decent thing, he was forced to suffer. Aaron was her friend and her father's friend.
    Paul waited for Miles' lowered head to come close; then he brought his knee up into the man's face. At the same time he swung his fist, sending Miles down upon his buttocks. Miles swayed there, dazed. With a queer look on his face, he crawled desperately away and stumbled out the back door.
    Paul was unable to comprehend that it was over. The miners were jostling and cheering him. As the heat and fury drained away, pain flooded in. He moved unsteadily, held upright by the packed bodies. Then, miraculously, Addie was by his side, taking his arm, leading him through a side door into the kitchen.
    There was a small room off the kitchen containing a cot, on which the night cook cat-napped between orders, and on this cot Addie forced Paul to lie. Not until his beaten and bruised body relaxed did he realize how spent he was. Yet he didn't like being fussed over by Addie. A cold dunking would clear his head and stop the bleeding.
    "Here, drink this," Addie said, her arm under his head.
    The whiskey burned his cut lips like fire but caused a warm glow in his stomach.
    "Thanks," he said, lying back.
    There was the sound of quick footsteps, and Norah appeared at the foot of the bed. Tears glistened in her eyes.
    "Oh, Paul, Paul—" she began.
    Addie stepped between them. "You'd better