He leaped forward, but Browning reached out a hand and seemed to catch the fellow in mid air. With a swing, he flung Welch fairly across the table.
“Come up, gentlemen!” he thundered. “I’ll take care of the whole of you if you walk up one at a time.”
One of the gamblers caught up a chair and flung it at the head of the big man. Bruce did not dodge, but he caught the chair and flung it back promptly, knocking the fellow down.
By this time Merriwell had succeeded in pulling Diamond to his feet, and he was trying to impress the Virginian with a sense of the situation. Jack started to protest that he was all right and had not needed assistance, but just then one of the gamblers tried to hit Frank. Diamond saw the movement, and that, more than anything else, awakened him. Like a flash, he whirled and let the fellow have it with his left, striking him under the ear. It was a savage blow, and it knocked Merriwell’s would-be assailant spinning into a corner.
“Don’t try to strike a friend of mine!” rang out the Virginian’s voice, now clear as a bell. “You can’t do that while I am around!”
“At them!” snarled Bunker. “Knock ’em out!”
Then there was a general charge on Merriwell and his friends. The gamblers caught up any kind of a weapon and started in to lay out the intruders in short order.
But they had started in on a hard job, as they were soon to discover, for the four Yale men were fighters. Now that he was aroused, there was nothing slow about Browning’s movements, and he actually enjoyed the fight.
During the next five minutes there was a pitched battle in that room, and a savage one at that. At the outset, the gamblers fought furiously, and some of the intruders were not to escape without small injuries.
Frank Merriwell singled out Bunker, who had caught up a stick of wood and was trying to get a crack at Browning that would lay the big man out. Merry lit on the ruffian and wrenched the club from his hand, at the same time giving him a jab that sent him reeling up against the wall.