"Struck me!" Foxy Pinsent shouted. "Struck me! By God! I'll teach him! I've been saving it up for him a long time. Let me go, Boss! What's the sense of holding me like this? Struck me, the whelp, I tell you! I've got to have him first or last! Let me go!"
And Percival: "And more to give you, Pinsent! Teach me, eh? If I could get!—Japhra! Stingo! It's no business of yours, this! Damn your interference! Japhra! Japhra! Let go my hands!"
They cooled a little as the hands still held them and their explanations were demanded. Boss Maddox left Pinsent to other constraint and came and stood in the little space between the two groups, hands behind his back in the familiar posture, shoulders slightly hunched, head on one side, and turning it this way and that as Percival or Pinsent spoke.
Presently he looked at Stingo. "That boy's right," he said, with a jerk back at Pinsent. "He's been struck. He's Foxy. This can't end here. He's got to have his rights."
"He'll get 'em," Stingo said, with as much grimness as his huskiness could convey. "He'll get 'em if I let this lot loose. Don't you let him worry, Boss."
Boss Maddox turned squarely on Pinsent. "Give it a rest till the morning, Foxy. You boys can't fight in this darkness—not you two."
Pinsent laughed: "I'm not going to fight him. I'm going to thrash him."
"Let me go, Japhra! Boss, let's have hands off! It's our show—no one else's."
Boss Maddox went back to his first contention. "This can't end here, Stingo," and Japhra answered him: "Nay, there's blood to be let, Boss. We can't stop it—nor have call to." He released Percival while he spoke, but kept a hand on him, and motioned Stingo's arms away. He spoke in his slow habit, and with seeming reluctance, but there was a glimmer of relish in his voice. "They've to settle it, Boss."
"Will you fight him, Pinsent?" Boss Maddox asked.