“Who’s a-blaming ye, Rob Bayne, and who’s getting the wust of it?” retorted the other. “It’s high time we knowed who’s boss here.”
“If we settle it in this way, Larry, will you agree to stand by the consequences?”
“You bet I will. I reckon I’m taller and bigger and stouter, and jess as spry. Oh, I’m itching all over to get at ye. Ye show ye are afraid of me! I reckon there ain’t no cops round here to meddle, and I’ll hev the fun of my life with ye. But if I whup ye, I’m to be guv’ner. Is thet yer say, Little Hickory?”
“Yes, Larry; but if ye get——”
The other did not wait for him to finish, but sprang forward with the evident intention of overpowering Rob before he could defend himself. But Rob was not to be caught off his guard so easily. Warding off the blow aimed at his body, Little Hickory fairly lifted his adversary from his feet by a dexterous movement under the other’s guard, to send him flat upon the ground.
Chick cheered, but the rest looked on as if spellbound.
Larry was soon on his feet again, to find Rob calmly confronting him, with his arms folded low down upon his body in the favorite position of the professional pugilist.
“Ye took me unawares!” cried Larry. “I’ll down ye to pay fer thet, and once I get my knee on ye I’ll choke the blood out’n ye!”
It would have been better for Larry to have said less, and tried more to curb his anger. But he advanced more warily this time, making several feints to the right and left, when, thinking he saw Little Hickory’s front exposed, he concentrated all his strength to deal him a blow that should send him upon his back.
No doubt he would have done it had he hit Rob. But he had mistaken the maneuvers of Little Hickory. The latter had purposely offered this apparent opportunity, and then, as Larry threw himself into the attack, he sent his arm upward and planted his own fist under the other’s chin with a force that made his teeth chatter and sent him reeling backward.