Joses snorted.
"Call yourself a woman!" he cried.
"I'm all right," answered the girl, seating herself critically on a mound, the pony in one hand, the dog in the other. "Don't hit him over the heart," she advised out of some experience of race-course scraps. "There might be trouble."
"I sha'n't hit him at all," replied the young man. He seized the fat man by the shoulder and spun him round. "I shall—shake him, and—punt him."
The girl did not know what punting meant, but it sounded good and was not so bad to watch.
Silver was applying his knee to his victim with precision and power. The fat man's teeth seemed to rattle under the pounding shocks. The words came joggling out of him, and they were not pretty words. He struck backward with his arms and feet, wriggling to get his plump shoulders free; but he was helpless as a baby in the arms of a nurse.
Silver was strong. Joses was right in that if in nothing else.
"He's killing me!" he gasped. "Fetch the coastguard!"
"No, thank you," said the girl.
The young man loosed his prey at last, and sent him spinning forward, projecting him with a kick.