"You go to hell," he cried hotly. "I got a right … "
"No man has a right to lie about me," announced Drennen crisply. The big hands at his sides had clenched swiftly with knotting muscles. At last he took a quick step forward, his quarrelsome mood riding him. "If you don't want me to choke the tongue out of your head tell them you lied."
"Messieurs, messieurs," cried poor old Marquette imploringly. "For the love of God! Tonight all mus' be gay, all mus' be frien's. It is the night Mamma Jeanne an' me we are marry fifty year … "
Drennen snarled at him, shaking the thin old hand away angrily. Rand was upon his feet, some of the stubbornness already fled from his eyes, the sound of Ernestine Dumont's taunting laugh lost to him in the harsh voice of Drennen.
"I don't want no trouble to-night, Dave," he said swiftly. "It's old Papa Marquette's weddin' night. I … I was jus' joshin', Dave." And then as Ernestine laughed again, he spat out, "Jus' joshin' to tease Ernestine here."
"Sangre de dios!" murmured Ramon Garcia gently, his black eyes liquid fire. "He is a little coward, that Rand."
Hardly more than a whisper and Garcia quite across the room from Rand. And yet the stillness was so perfect that Rand heard and jerked his head up, swinging toward the Mexican.
"You little Greaser!" he cried shrilly. "You dirty breed, you!" He pushed through the crowd to Garcia's table. "Coward, am I? I'll show you."
Ramon Garcia's laughter greeting the hot words was a clear burst of unaffected, boyish merriment. He tilted his chair back against the wall and turned a delighted face up to Rand's flushed one.
"Señor," he chided softly, shaking a slender white finger very close to Rand's nose, "have you forgot it is the gala night of our good host, the Papa Français? That you don't care for trouble to-night? Mama mia! You are a comic—no?"
Then bringing his hand away and hooking both thumbs impudently into the armholes of his gay vest the Mexican smiled as he hummed softly, glancing away briefly to where Ernestine Dumont was watching them:
"The perfume of roses, of little red roses;
(Thou art a rose, oh, so sweet, corazón!)"
With men laughing at him Blunt Rand struck. The young Mexican was still in his chair. Like a cat he slipped from it now, avoiding the heavy, swinging blow, moving to one side with swift gracefulness, standing with the table between him and Rand. As he moved his right hand slid into his pocket.
"You dago!" Rand shouted at him, lunging forward while men scrambled out of the way. "Call me coward an' then go for your knife! Fight with your hands, damn you."
Again Garcia avoided him easily, calm and quick eyed, offering pantherine swiftness against the blind fury of Rand.
"Si, señor," he answered lightly. "With the hands. But the hands I mus' keep without dirt, señor!"
His hand came away from his pocket and he made a sudden gesture, still laughing, toward Rand's face. The trapper jerked back quickly. Then a great booming swell of laughter went up, even the slow rumble of Kootanie George's voice and the tinkling tremulo of Ernestine Dumont's joining it Ramon Garcia had brought out his gloves and had drawn them on before Rand had understood.
In size and physique Rand was the average there. The young Mexican was the shortest, slightest man in the house. But none knows better than the dwellers in the North Woods that it is unwise to judge men by mere size of body. It is well to look to the eyes of one's antagonist.
Garcia sprang forward and slapped Rand's face so that the face burned and the sound of the blow was like a pistol shot in the quiet room. And as Rand's return threshing blow sought him he sprang away, laughing.
"For calling me Greaser," he cried lightly. "When I have said out loud that I am Ramon Garcia."
Bellowing curses Rand charged at him again. Garcia avoided and seemed to have no difficulty whatever in so doing.
"Will you open the door, señor?" he called to a man standing near the entrance.
"He wants to have an open trail to run," jeered Rand. And again striking heavily his blow found the empty air and a second resounding slap reddened his other cheek.
"For calling me a breed," taunted Garcia, so that all might hear the words with the slap of the open hand. "Me who have the blood of kings, blue like the skies."
The man standing at the door … it chanced to be young Frank Marquette … obeyed Garcia's command silently and promptly. Rand, his rage flaring ever higher as men drawing chairs and tables out of the way laughed at him and as the Mexican's sallies taunted him, hurled himself forward purposing to get his enemy in a corner of the room. But at the best the trapper was awkward and Ramon Garcia's little feet in his little boots carried him much as the fabled winged sandals bore the hero Perseus in his encounter with the dragon. Not once had Rand landed a square blow; not once had Garcia been where the big red fists looked for him. And while Rand breathed heavily, Ramon Garcia, whose soul was as deeply steeped in the dramatic as Père Marquette's in colour, sang maddening little snatches of love songs and stole swift glances now and then at Ernestine Dumont.
From the beginning it was clear that Garcia was playing with the other. But the end, coming swiftly, was not what men had looked for. A great gasp went up at it, followed by a shout of applause and a roar of laughter. Garcia had tantalised his antagonist, but beyond slapping his face twice had not touched him. He skipped about him like a French dancing master and so allowed Rand to make a fool of himself for the moment. Presently, so had the Mexican engineered it, they were not five steps from the open door and the way was clear. One instant he had seemed about to draw back again, to avoid Rand as he had avoided him so many times.
"You little monkey-man!" Rand was shouting at him. "Stand still and … "
That was all that he said. Garcia had leaped forward; his two gloved hands had sped like lightning to Rand's wrists, he had seized the bigger man and had pushed him backward, had suddenly whirled him about, with a bunching of strength which men had not guessed was in him he had thrown Rand out through the open door, and as the trapper plunged forward into the muddy road the Mexican lifted his foot and kicked.
"For calling me dago!" smiled Garcia. "Me, whose blood is of Castile." He stripped off his gloves and tossed them into the road. "They are spoil! Bah. Pig!"
Rand was back at the threshold, his face blood red, his hands dripping the mud from the slushy road. But young Frank Marquette had stepped out to meet him and had closed the door.
For a little all eyes in the room rested intent upon Ramon Garcia. The first estimate, founded upon dandified clothes and manner, had changed swiftly. He was a man even though he wore gloves and was overfond of posing. Even though everything he did was overdone, whether it be the bowing over an old Frenchman's hand, the wide sweep of his hat in a flourish of slow gracefulness, the tender love making to a woman for whom he did not care the snap of his little white fingers, upon occasion his soft eyes knew how to grow keen and hard and he carried himself with the assurance of fearlessness. It was as though he had worn a lace cloak over a capable, muscled body; as though the cloak had been blown aside by a sudden gust and men had seen the true man underneath.
In Kootanie George's eyes where there had come to be a widening of slow astonishment during the brief struggle now was a dawning admiration. He put out his great hand as he shambled forward.
"I called you Greaser, too," he said heavily. "I take it back, Garcia. You're a white man. Shake."
Garcia took his hand readily, laughing.
"And you, señor, whom I thought a clown are a gentleman," he answered, a trifle of impudence in the gaze which swept the big man from head to heel. Kootanie grinned a bit, passed over the innuendo in silence and went back to his chair. Garcia, giving an added twist of fierceness to his mustaches, returned to his dice game.
For a little Dave Drennen had been forgotten. Now he was remembered. His appearance