The old man beamed at the compliment. “Wa’al, wa’al, an’ did ye tell ’em that, now! Wa’al under those circumstances, sheriff, we appreciate yore official position and thankee for yuh sentiments. Boys, I guess we’ll be ridin’ out to the ranch. There ain’t nothin’ in town for us this afternoon, anyhow.”

This suggestion was greeted with storm. “What! Let them Bar Y boys bluff us into backin’ out when we’ve got a legal holiday with nothin’ to do? Why shucks! What’s come over yuh, Walrus! We ain’t goin’ to let no boxin’ perfesser bluff us out!”

Big Hat Phil Dunton was particularly emphatic. “I got a date, an’ I ain’t goin’ no place for nobody.”

The old Walrus sighed. “That’s the way with yuh young fire eaters. I was just tryin’ to git ye away where we wouldn’t have nothin’ rubbed in. It looks to me like that Bar Y gang was loaded for trouble. Stay if ye want to, but the less we give ’em to crow over the less we’ll have to wipe out. Stay if ye want to, but we’d better be all stickin’ around together. That bunch ain’t much more than started.”

The old man’s prediction proved to be correct. Before the afternoon had merged into evening, and before the evening had slipped away to the time of closing the Palace Theatre, the official closing time of all Coyote City, four of the Circle C boys were wearing black eyes, eyes that were puffed and shiny. The Bar Y outfit seemed to have already had considerable advance instruction, and the punchers had laid aside the wild haymakers of the cow camp, and instead fought with swift, deadly short-arm jabs, jabs that came with speed and precision. In short the Bar Y outfit had become formidable fighters, fighters who had very apparently been training, eagerly looking forward to this occasion and wearing chips on their shoulders.

The town of Coyote City was the county seat of Mayama County and lay in the center of the sun-swept valley known as Mayama Valley. In prehistoric times there had been a river in the valley. Now there was a depression in the glaring sand. The only water was that reached from deep wells. Sun, sand and cacti surrounded the little city which was supported entirely by the patronage of cowpunchers who came in from the adjoining ranches to spend their pay checks.

The valley cut through two ranges of mountains. Those to the west gave a fertile, rolling pasture land where the Bar Y held nearly all of the grazing privileges. The eastern range was the property of the Circle C ranch. To the north and south there were smaller ranches, but the two main ranches of the entire county were the well established rival brands which held the opposing mountain ridges, controlling untold thousands of acres in their grazing lands and fostering a deep-seated rivalry.

Because of the formation of the country the Bar Y boys and the Circle C contingent held infrequent meetings. It was only on legal holidays that the town of Coyote City held any great numbers of the two factions. On ordinary nights a few men would ride in to the picture show and on Saturday nights the stores did a brisk business, but there were relatively few occasions on which the men turned out in numbers.

Big Hat Phil was “sweet” on the cashier of the moving picture show, a sweetness which was a matter of weeks and was patent and undisguised. The recipient of his admiration, however, a black haired, snub-nosed bundle of feminine foibles, enjoyed the prestige of being virtually the only unattached girl of any importance in the little city, and was inclined to take every advantage of her position. Her heart was besieged by a round score of cowmen, some half dozen of whom were intensely serious. If she had any preference she carefully disguised it, and her smiles were just personal enough to be upsetting, yet impersonal enough to be noncommittal. It was a fair field and no favors.

* * * * *

At the Circle C the men took stock of injuries, compared notes, and consulted the Walrus. It appeared certain that the cowpunchers, men who fought as they lived, with that wild direct vigorous mode of attack, could not stand up against the scientific fighting which the men of the Bar Y were mastering rapidly.

In the past the Circle C had enjoyed all the advantage. Big Sam Eaton had been a tower of strength, and there could be no denying that at times he had used his fistic prowess in other than self defense. In fact it had always amused the Circle C men to think that the Bar Y punchers hunted a hole when Big Sam was on the warpath. The shoe was now very decidedly on the other foot.

The Walrus declined to commit himself. “I gotta go in to Los Angeles an’ meet the big squeeze this week, an’ I gotta hundred an’ one things to worry me about. I ain’t goin’ to take on no problems in addition until after I’ve got all this business stuff outa my system, an’ even then I ain’t makin’ no promises.”

“S’pose yuh pick us up a boxin’ professor of our own an’ bring the bird out here with yuh?” suggested Sam Eaton, whose black eyes had turned to a sickly green, and who bitterly resented his downfall from the throne of fistic supremacy.

Walrus shook his head. “I don’t want to have yuh all gettin’ interested in somethin’ that’s goin’ to take up all yore time. Yuh are sort of a no-’count outfit as it is, an’ there’s lots o’ work to be done. Yuh can earn more money ropin’ steers than yuh can shadow boxin’ out in the corral, an’ one of them things is bound to interfere with the other. What’s more it ain’t no use to fight the other fellow with his own weapons. This is a time when we gotta use strategy; an’ I ain’t goin’ to think of it until after I’ve done got all this here business stuff off my chest.”

The edict was final, and those who knew the Walrus best recognized the firm mouth that was concealed behind the drooping mustache. The Walrus could be depended on to think up some scheme which would enable the Circle C to regain its self respect and also its supremacy, but he would think it up in his own way.

In the meantime some of the others took the situation into their own hands, trying to find out some method whereby the boxing instructor of the Bar Y could be persuaded to leave the country. They acquired some additional information and a little experience, but no direct results—unless the black eye which was hung on the luckless individual who approached the professor directly with a bribe to transfer his instruction to the Circle C could be considered a result.

The boxer was none other than Herbert Malone, a former candidate for championship honors. A spot on his lung which had developed after he had retired from the ring had caused him to winter in the south, taking advantage of a cattle ranch where he could be in the open air. He was not in a condition to indulge in any great amount of desperate fighting, but the few blows which were necessary when he was confronted by one of the unskilled punchers of the Circle C were hardly enough to make him draw a long breath, and he was making rapid strides in teaching the men of the Bar Y just how to handle their fists.

Those who knew and would talk stated that the bunkhouse of the Bar Y resembled a huge gymnasium. Bags of sand hung from the rafters and the men, under the personal supervision of Herbert Malone, practised hitting those short-arm jabs which are so deadly in the ring, but which the average untrained individual knows nothing of.

If the Walrus could be said to be the slave of any particular form of dissipation, it was an overpowering desire to watch motion pictures in the making. Inasmuch as Fielding Spencer, director of the Sun Maid Comedies, was a close friend of the old man’s and one who made a hunting trip every year to the Circle C ranch, old Walrus had no difficulty in indulging himself in his pet hobby whenever he was in the city of the Angels.

About the studios of the Sun Maid Comedies hung all sorts of types, beautiful girls and near beautiful girls, fond mothers with infants, also fond mothers who left their infants at home and posed as flappers. In short, there was always a crowd of extras numbering all sorts and conditions, all types and styles, all ages and sexes, assembled about the doors of the studio.

It was while Fielding Spencer was discoursing on his latest stunt in artistic lighting, leading the old cowpuncher around the lot, that he felt a tug at his sleeve. Turning and ceasing his discourse on lights and back lights, floods, broads, banks and spots, he beheld the old man staring into the crowd of extras who thronged the gateway in the high board fence.

“Who is he?” asked the Walrus, his mustache almost seeming to bristle as his eyes kindled with interest.

The director followed his gaze, then laughed. “That’s ‘Pug’ Parry, the toughest looking bird in seventeen states, bar none. He always takes the part of the heavyweight pug in the fight scenes, and does the strong man stunts. He’s strong as an ox and can bend iron bars over his arm like you’d bend curtain rods.”

The Walrus nodded. “That’s my man. Send him over. I got a job for him on the ranch.”