"And you've come alone?" He drew up his ponderous form.
John Steele smiled. "I assure you I welcomed the opportunity."
"You won't long." The great fists closed. "Do you know what I am going to do to you?"
"I haven't any curiosity," still clinging to thieves' jargon or St. Giles Greek. "But I'm sure you won't play me the trick you did the last time I saw you."
The fellow shot his head near; in his look shone a gleam of recognition. "You're the swell cove who wanted to palaver that night when--"
"You tried to rob me of my purse?"
John Steele laughed; his glance lingered on his bulky adversary with odd, persistent exhilaration, as if after all that had gone before, this contest royal, which promised to become one of sheer brute strength, awoke to its utmost a primal fighting force in him. "Do you know the penalty for attempting that game, Tom Rogers, alias Tom-o'-the-Road; alias---"
The man fell back, in his eyes a look of ferocious wonderment. "Who are you? By---!" he said.
"John Steele."
"John Steele?" The bloodshot eyes became slightly vacuous. "The--? Then you used him," indicating savagely the entrance at the back, "for a duck to uncover?" Steele nodded. "And you're the one who's been so long at my heels?" Rage caused the hot blood to suffuse the man's face. "I'll burke you for that."