"Well, I assure you he was in a proper rage, and if it hadn't been
for Bayne I believe he would have trimmed me to a peak, administered a
fitting castigation, I mean."

"He would, eh?" said the father with a grim smile. "I should like to see
him try."

"So should I, dad, if you were around. I think I see you--feint with
the right, then left, right, left! bing! bang! bung! All over but the
shiver, eh, dad? It would be sweet! But," he added regretfully, "that's
the very thing a fellow cannot do."

"Cannot do? And why not, pray? It is what every fellow is in duty bound
to do to a bully of that sort."

"Yes, but to be quite fair, dad, you could hardly call Duff a bully. At
least, he wasn't bullying me. As a matter of fact, I was bullying him.
Oh, I think he had reason to be angry. When a chap undertakes to pull
another chap up for law breaking, perhaps he should be prepared to take
the consequences. But to go on. Bayne stepped in--awfully decent of
him, too,--when just at that moment, as novelists say, with startling
suddenness occurred an event that averted the impending calamity. Along
came Neil Fraser, no less, in that new car of his, in a whirlwind of
noise and dust, honking like a flock of wild geese. Well, you should
have seen those bronchos. One lurch, and we were on the ground, a
beautiful upset, and the bronchos in an incipient runaway, fortunately
checked by your humble servant. Duff, in a new and real rage this time,
up with his gun and banged off both barrels after the motor car, by this
time honking down the trail."