The digger turned his hairy visage round, and glanced angrily into Jack’s eyes.
“You’ll call in the traps?—you long-legged swine!” With a mighty back-kick, the Prospector lodged the heel of his heavy boot fairly on Scarlett’s shin. In a moment he had struggled free, and faced round.
“Put up your fists!” he cried. “I fight fair, I fight fair.”
There was a whirlwind of blows, and then a figure fell to the floor with a thud like that of a felled tree. It was the lucky digger, and he lay still and quiet amid the wreckage of the fight.
“Here,” said Cathro, handing Mr. Crewe ten pounds. “Take your money—our friend the digger lost the game.”
“This is most unfortunate, Cathro.” But as he spoke, the Father of Timber Town pocketed the gold. “Did I not see Scarlett knock that man down? This is extremely unfortunate. I have just refused the offer of a man who avers—who avers, mind you—that he can put us on this new gold-field in a week, but I trusted to Scarlett’s diplomacy with the digger: I come back, and what do I see? I see my friend Scarlett knock the man down! There he lies as insensible as a log.”
“It looks,” said Cathro, “as if our little plan had fallen through.”
“Fallen through? We have made the unhappy error of interfering in a game of cards. We should have stood off, sir, and when a quarrel arose—I know these diggers; I have been one of them myself, and I understand them, Cathro—when a quarrel arose we should have interposed on behalf of the digger, and he would have been our friend for ever. Now all the gold in the country wouldn’t bribe him to have dealings with us.”
The noise of the fight had brought upon the scene all the occupants of the bar. They stood in a group, silent and expectant, just inside the room. The landlord, who was with them, came forward, and bent over the inanimate form of the Prospector. “I think this is likely to be a case for the police,” said he, as he rose, and stood erect. “The man may be alive, or he may be dead—I’m not a doctor: I can’t tell—but there’s likely to be trouble in store for the gentlemen in the room at the time of the fight.”
Suddenly an energetic figure pushed its way through the group of spectators, and Benjamin Tresco, wearing an air of supreme wisdom, and with a manner which would not have disgraced a medico celebrated for his “good bedside manner,” commenced to examine the prostrate man. First, he unbuttoned the insensible digger’s waistcoat, and placed his hand over his heart; next, he felt his pulse. “This man,” he said deliberately, like an oracle, “has been grossly manhandled; he is seriously injured, but with care we shall pull him round. My dear”—to Gentle Annie, who stood at his elbow, in her silks and jewels, the personification of Folly at a funeral—“a drop of your very best brandy—real cognac, mind you, and be as quick as you possibly can.”