“Fight not finish,” remarked the Indian blandly, “Bell go clang, like in ring. Heap soon Big Punch get up, start ’nother round. Get me, Steve?”
Schaeffer took an involuntary step backward, his face distorted.
“Somebody get busy an’ put this lunatic out o’ business,” he roared, glaring around at the ring of interested faces. “Bury a lead slug in his worthless carcass where it’ll do the most good.”
The guide was bending over his friend, vigorously chafing one limp hand.
“Better not,” he advised coolly, without raising his eyes. “Joe’s gun go off plenty quick. Hit Pete in bread basket. Make plenty bad hole no cork up.”
His weapon was still aimed directly at the discomfited riverman’s person, and Schaeffer seemed for the moment bereft of ideas for a proper retort. The silence was swiftly broken by a loud guffaw from one of the spectators, to whom the whole affair seemed to appeal as something uncommonly amusing.
“By thunder, boys!” he chuckled. “Hanged if the flea-bitten old cuss ain’t right! The kid’s comin’ around fast. I move we call this the end o’ the first round, an’ let the fight go on. It’ll help pass the time away, if nothin’ else.”
Schaeffer snapped out an angry expostulation, but the Indian’s idea seemed to take with the rough-and-ready crowd. Not one of them thought for an instant that the contest could possibly be drawn out for more than a few minutes longer, or they would, perhaps, not have been so eager. As it was, however, they took the Indian’s part with a rough sort of jocularity which the irritated drive boss knew better than to oppose.
And so when Bainbridge struggled back to consciousness—it had not been a complete knock-out, and he had never, save for the briefest second, been entirely senseless—he found this unexpected condition of affairs.
As his glance flashed past the Indian’s inquiring black eyes, and came to rest on Schaeffer’s sullen, hate-filled face, he made a queer, inarticulate noise in his throat, and tried to scramble up. Moose placed a firm, restraining hand quietly on his chest, and forced him back.