Folks began to come from all directions to see the rumpus. Banty was coming at Catty from one side and Skoodles from the other, and it looked like he had bit off more than he could chaw. If he went for one the other hit him a lick, and if he went for the other the first one got in a punch. But Catty sort of worked around till he got his back to a store window, and then it wasn’t so bad. He acted like he was just fighting to keep them off, and I thought he knew he couldn’t do any more than that; but all of a sudden he jumped at Skoodles and quicker than a cat he hit him twice, once on the nose and once on the stummick, and Skoodles sat down to think it over. Then Catty went for Banty in earnest, and in about two minutes Banty was running up the street, hollering, with his lips swollen and one eye that wouldn’t take a prize in a beauty show for a week.
Catty looked after Banty and he looked down at Skoodles, and then he grinned. “Guess they won’t call names for a day or so,” he says, and just then Mrs. Gage came through the crowd that had gathered. She was so mad she was white.
“That’s what we get for having tramps in this town. I said right along he was a young tough. He’ll be killing somebody or something. It hain’t civilized,” says she. “Where’s the constable or the town marshal?” she says. “I guess he’ll go to jail for this.”
“I’ll go to jail if I have to,” says Catty, “but nobody ’ll call me a tramp or a jail-bird. I’m respectable, ma’am, and I’m entitled to be treated respectable.”
“You’ll be treated respectable,” says she. “I’m going to——”
“Wouldn’t if I was you, Mrs. Gage,” says Mr. Wade, who must have been watching the fight. “If I ever saw anybody get a licking he deserved, it was your son. It was two to one, too. If I were you, ma’am, I’d go home and keep kind of still about this. I’ll be a witness for this boy, and I guess most of this crowd will. You will, won’t you, Captain Winton?”
“I shall be glad to,” says the captain. “This boy stood up for himself the way a gentleman should. He showed the proper spirit. Your son got what he deserved.”
Mrs. Gage turned around without another word and marched off, and Captain Winton shook hands with Catty. “Young man,” said he, “I want to congratulate you. A boy with less courage would never have resented an insult when he had to fight two to one.”
“I didn’t have to,” said Catty. “Wee-wee would have helped, but I wouldn’t let him. It was my fight.”
“If the Gages make any trouble, come to me,” says Captain Winton, and then we went along toward the hotel to look after our business with Mr. Kinderhook.