"Stand yer ground, Brad!" shouted the friends of the speaker. "We'll see they come one at a time."
"Oh, see here! No fightin'," shouted others. The man Hank was not to be silenced. He pushed his way to the wagon-wheel and shook his extended fist at the speaker.
"Take that back, you"—
Bradley caught him by his uplifted wrist, and bracing himself against the wheel, jerked his assailant into the wagon-box, and tumbled him out in a disjointed heap on the other side before he could collect his scattered wits.
Then Bradley stood up in his splendid height and breadth. "I say it's the truth; and if there are any more rowdies who want 'o try yankin' me out o' this wagon, now's your time. You never'll have a better chance." Nobody seemed anxious. The cheers of the crowd and the young orator's determined attitude discouraged them. "Now I'll tell yeh who the man was who presented that order. It was William Bacon; mebbe some o' you fellers want to tell him he lies."
He finished his speech without any marked interruption, and was roundly congratulated by the farmers. On the way back to Rock River, however, he seemed very much depressed, while Milton exulted over it all.
"Gosh! I wish I had your muscle, old man! I ain't worth a cent in things like that. Cæsar! But you snatched him bald-headed."
"Makes me feel sick," Bradley said. "I ain't had but one squabble before since I was a boy. It makes me feel like a plug-ugly."
Milton was delighted with it all. It made such a capital story to tell! "Say Brad, do you know what I thought of when you was yankin' that feller over the wheel? Scaldin' hogs! You pulled on him just as if he was a three-hundred pound shote. It was funny as all time!"
But Bradley had trouble in going to sleep that night, thinking about it. He was wondering what She would have thought of him in that disgraceful row. He tried to remember whether he swore or not. He felt, even in the darkness, her grave, sweet eyes fixed upon him in a sorrowful, disappointed way, and it made him groan and turn his face to the wall, to escape the picture of himself standing there in the wagon, with his coat off, shouting back at a band of rowdies.