“He’s a drinkin’ man, and you ain’t, I take it. Wal, lay fur his wind,” he whispered. “Never mind his face. Let him think he’s got you all bruk up ’n’ then let him have it in the stummick, but watch out he don’t use his boots on you.”
Harrigan, blazing with rage, flung his coat from him as Ross came up. The men drew back, whispering as Ross took off his coat, folded it and handed it to Avery. The young man’s cool deliberation impressed them.
Harrigan rushed at Ross, who dropped quickly to one knee as the Irishman’s flail-like swing whistled over his head. Before Harrigan could recover his poise, Ross shot up and drove a clean, straight blow to Harrigan’s stomach. The Irishman grunted and one of the men laughed. He drew back and came on again, both arms going. Ross circled his opponent, avoiding the slow, heavy blows easily.
“Damn you!” panted Harrigan, “stand up and take your dose—”
Ross lashed a quick stinging fist to the other’s face, and jumped back as Harrigan, head down, swung a blow that would have annihilated an ox, had it landed, but David leaped back, and as Harrigan staggered from the force of his own blow, he leaped in again. There was a flash and a thud.
The Irishman wiped the blood from his lips, and shaking his head, charged at Ross as though he would bear him down by sheer weight. Contrary to the expectations of the excited woodsmen, Ross, stooping a little, ran at Harrigan and they met with a sickening crash of blows that made the onlookers groan. Ross staggered away from his opponent, his left arm hanging nervelessly at his side. As Harrigan recovered breath and lunged at him again, Ross circled away rubbing his shoulder.
Harrigan’s swollen lips grinned hideously. “Now, you pup—”
He swung his right arm, and as he did so Avery shouted, “Watch out fur his boots!”
David’s apparently useless left arm shot down as Harrigan drew up his knee and drove his boot at the other’s abdomen. Ross caught Harrigan’s ankle and jerked it toward him. The Irishman crashed to the ground and lay still.
With a deliberation that held the men breathless, Ross strode to the fallen man and stood over him. Harrigan got to his knees.