“I’ll teach ye, confound ye!... I’ll show ye how to git free with folkses’ names.” Here the deputy applied with generous tongue a number of descriptive epithets. “When I git through with you,” he continued, “you won’t waggle a pen for a day or two.” And then, quite without warning the professor to make ready for battle, the deputy swung his great arm, with an enormous open hand flailing at its extremity, and slapped Evan just under his left ear. Evan left the place on which he had been standing suddenly and completely, bringing up in the road a dozen feet away dazed, astounded, feeling as if something had fallen upon him from a great height. It was his first experience with physical violence. Never before had a man struck him. His sensations were conflicting—when his head cleared sufficiently to enable him to perceive sensations. He had been struck and knocked down! He, Evan Bartholomew Pell, whose life was organized on a plane high above street brawls, had been slapped on the jaw publicly, had been tumbled head over heels ignominiously!
He sat up dizzily and raised his hand to his eyes as if to assure himself his spectacles were in place. They were not. He stared up at Deputy Jenney with vague bewilderment, and Deputy Jenney laughed at him.
Then Evan lost track of events temporarily. Something went wrong with his highly trained reasoning faculties; in short, these faculties ceased to function. He sprang to his feet, wholly forgetful of his spectacles, and leaped upon Deputy Jenney, uttering a cry of rage. Now Evan had not the least idea what was needful to be done by a man who went into battle; he lost sight of the fact that a man of his stature could not reasonably expect to make satisfactory progress in tearing apart a man of Jenney’s proportions. Of one thing alone he was conscious, and that was a desire to strew the deputy about the road in fragments.
Some one who saw the fracas described it later, and his phrase is worth retaining. “The professor,” said this historian, “jest kind of b’iled up over Jenney.”
That is what Evan did. He boiled up over the big man, inchoate, bubbling arms and legs, striking, kicking. Deputy Jenney was surprised, but delighted. He pushed Evan off with a huge hand and flailed him a second time under the ear. Evan repeated his previous gymnastics. This time he picked himself up more quickly. His head was clear now. The wild rage which had possessed him was gone. But there remained something he had never experienced before—a cold intent to kill!
He sprang upon the deputy again, not blindly this time, but with such effect as a wholly inexperienced man could muster. He even succeeded in striking Jenney before he was sent whirling to a distance again.... Now, your ordinary citizen would have known it was high time to bring the matter to a discreet conclusion, but Evan came to no such realization. He knew only one thing, that he must somehow batter and trample this huge animal until he begged for mercy....
At this instant Carmel Lee issued from the office, and stood petrified as she saw the deputy knock Evan down for the third time, and then, instead of screaming or running for help or of doing any of those things which one would have expected of a woman, she remained fascinated, watching the brutal spectacle. She was not indifferent to its brutality, not willing Evan should be beaten to a pulp, but nevertheless she stood, and nothing could have dragged her away. It was Evan who fascinated her—something about the professor gripped and held her breathless.
She saw him get slowly to his feet, brush his trousers, blink calmly at the deputy as at some rather surprising phenomenon, and then, with the air of a man studiously intent upon some scientific process, spring upon the big man for the third time. Carmel could see the professor was not in a rage; she could see he was not frightened; she could see he was moved by cold, grim intention alone.... The deputy was unused to such proceedings. Generally when he knocked a man down that man laid quietly on his back and begged for mercy. There was no sign of begging for mercy in Evan Pell. Hitherto Jenney had used the flat of his hand as being, in his judgment, a sufficient weapon for the destruction of Evan Pell. Now, for the first time, he used his fist. The professor swarmed upon him so like a wildcat that Jenney was unable to deliver the sort of blow on the exact spot intended. The blow glanced off Evan’s skull and the young man seized Jenney’s throat with both hands. Jenney tore him loose and hurled him away. Again Pell came at him, this time to be knocked flat and bleeding. He arose slowly, swaying on his feet, to rush again. Carmel stood with gripped fists, scarcely breathing, unable to move or to speak. The sight was not pleasant. Again and again the big man knocked down the little man, but on each occasion the little man, more and more slowly, more and more blindly, got to his feet and fell upon his antagonist. He was all but blind; his legs wabbled under him, he staggered, but always he returned to his objective. That he was not rendered unconscious was amazing. He uttered no sound. His battered lips were parted and his clean, white, even teeth showed through.... The deputy was beginning to feel nonplused.... He knocked Evan down again. For an instant the young man lay still upon his back. Presently he moved, rolled upon his face, struggled to his hands and knees, and, by the power of his will, compelled himself to stand erect. He wavered. Then he took a tottering step forward and another, always toward Jenney. His head rolled, but he came on. Jenney watched him vindictively, his hands at his sides. Pell came closer, lifted his right fist as if its weight were more than his muscles could lift, and pushed it into the deputy’s face. It was not a blow, but there was the intention of a blow, unquenchable intention.... The deputy stepped back and struck again. No more was necessary. Evan Pell could not rise, though after a few seconds he tried to do so. But even then the intention which resided in him was unquenched.... On hands and knees he crawled back toward Deputy Jenney—crawled, struggled to his enemy—only to sink upon his face at the big man’s feet, motionless, powerless, unconscious.
Jenney pushed him with his foot. “There,” he said, a trifle uncertainly, “I guess that’ll do fer you.... And that’s what you git every time we meet. Remember that. Every time we meet.”
Carmel seemed to be released now from the enchantment which had held her motionless. She had seen a thing, a thing she could never forget. She had seen a thing called physical courage, and a higher thing called moral courage. That is what had held her, fascinated her.... It had been grim, terrible, but wonderful. Every time she saw Evan return to his futile attack she knew she was seeing the functioning of a thing wholly admirable.