The other two strangers, heavy-jowled toughs, had sprung to meet Payne. One Roger staggered with a left swing on the ear; the other grappled his legs. This man Higgins rewarded with a kick which would have shattered a thinner skull to bits. Then two separate fights raged up and down the spoil bank. Instantly Roger and Higgins realized that they had their hands full. Payne ran into a body punch which made him realize that his opponent was nearly his equal. Higgins was knocked down at once, bounding up like a rubber ball and cheering the man who struck him.
"That was a peach, that one!" he roared, and returned the compliment.
The man rose, knocked Higgins down again and jumped on him.
"Rough and tumble it is!" cried Higgins, and grappled with bear-like arms.
Roger refused to go into a clinch, meeting his antagonist's rushes with straight lefts, and following with futile swings of his right. The tough was too skilled to be caught with a solid blow. Once Roger landed full on the jaw with what he expected to be a knockout and the blow glanced harmlessly, as the man rolled his head back with the trained pugilist's skill. Roger realized that it would be no short fight, and he thought of the man he had knocked into the canal. The fight had raged down the spoil bank, and he glanced around and saw the leader clawing his way up the bank. The pause nearly proved fatal. Roger's opponent leaped in and caught his head in chancery.
"Hand it to him!" screamed the tough to his partner in the ditch.
"Shoot him in the back!"
With a mighty lunge Roger flung himself and his opponent to the ground as a pistol snapped viciously and a steel-jacketed bullet zipped over his head.
"Look out, Hig!" he shouted. "Stay under your man."
"Turn 'im over!" The leader who had crawled upon the spoil bank fired again and missed. "Can't yah turn him up so I can get a crack at 'im?"
Roger felt the tough beneath him exerting all his energy. Slowly, surely he felt himself being turned. Then out from the sawgrass came the roar of a rifle, and a heavy slug whined over the gunman's head.
Bang! Another shot. Then the voice of Blease, the squatter: