Presently the miners began to move away and Trinidad, picking up a chip which he espied under a bench, put it on his shoulder and stood in the centre of the room, thereby indirectly challenging the new pupil to a scrimmage.
“Don’t do it!” cried Old Steady as he hung up his hat upon a buck’s horn on the wall.
“Go on! Go on!” encouraged Bill Crow, hanging up his hat beside Old Steady’s.
The boys took up his words in chorus.
“Go on! Go on!”
Whereupon, Sonora made a dash for the chip and knocked it off of Trinidad’s shoulder, blazing huskily into his face as he did so:
“You do, do you?”
In the twinkling of an eye Trinidad’s jacket was off and the two men were engaged in a hand-to-hand scuffle.
“Soak him!” came from a voice somewhere in the crowd.
“Hit him!” urged another.