“See here, mister,” said he, “civil words is cheap. You’ve no call to speak to me like that.”
“You infernal rascal!” cried the other. “I’ll show you the way out of that plantation with the toe of my boot. Do you dare to stand there on my land and talk back at me?” He advanced with a menacing face and his dog-whip half raised. “Well, are you going?” he cried, as he swung it into the air.
Tom Spring jumped back to avoid the threatened blow.
“Go slow, mister,” said he. “It’s only fair that you should know where you are. I’m Spring, the prize-fighter. Maybe you have heard my name.”
“I thought you were a rascal of that breed,” said the man. “I’ve had the handling of one or two of you gentry before, and I never found one that could stand up to me for five minutes. Maybe you would like to try?”
“If you hit me with that dog-whip, mister——”
“There, then!” He gave the young man a vicious cut across the shoulder. “Will that help you to fight?”
“I came here to fight,” said Tom Spring, licking his dry lips. “You can drop that whip, mister, for I will fight. I’m a trained man and ready. But you would have it. Don’t blame me.”
The man was stripping the blue coat from his broad shoulders. There was a sprigged satin vest beneath it, and they were hung together on an alder branch.
“Trained are you?” he muttered. “By the Lord, I’ll train you before I am through!”