Reivers laughed, but the look that he bent on Toppy’s bland face indicated that he was a trifle puzzled.
“Then you wouldn’t be running the camp efficiently, Treplin,” he said. “It wouldn’t make any difference if they were all Tortas; but Bill’s a valuable man. He furnishes some one a bellyful of hating and fighting every week. No; I wouldn’t have Bill killed for less than two hundred dollars. He’s one of my best antidotes for the disease of discontent.”
The guards now had pulled two other men up to the ropes and were searching and stripping them. Toppy stared at the disparity in the sizes of the men as the clothes were pulled off them. One stood up strong and straight, the muscles bulging big beneath his dark skin, his neck short and heavy, his head cropped and round. He wore a small, upturned moustache and carried himself with a certain handy air that indicated his close acquaintance with ring-events. The other man was short and dark, obviously an Italian; the skin of his body was a sickly white, his face olive green. He stood crouched, and beneath his ragged beard two teeth gleamed, like the fangs of a snarling dog.
“Antonio, the Knife-Expert, and Mahmout, the Strangling Bulgarian,” announced Reivers laughingly. “Tony tried to stick Mahmout because of a little lady back in Rail Head, and made such a poor job of it that Mahmout has offered to meet him in the ring; Tony with his knife, Mahmout with his wrestling-tricks. Start ’em off.”
The Bulgarian was under the ropes and upright in the ring before the Italian had started. He was in his stocking-feet, and despite the clumsiness of his build he moved with a quickness and ease that told of the fine co-ordination of the effective athlete. When the Italian entered the ring he held his right hand behind his back, and in the hand gleamed the six-inch blade of a wicked-looking stiletto.
A shiver ran along Toppy’s spine, but he continued to play the game.
“Evidently Mahmout isn’t a valuable man; you don’t care what happens to him,” he said.
“Not particularly,” replied Reivers seriously. “He’s a good man on the rollways—nothing extra. Still, I hardly believe Tony can kill him—not this time, at least.”
The faces around the ring grew fiercer now. Growled curses and exclamations came through clenched teeth. Here was the spectacle that the brute-spirit hungered for—the bare, living flesh battling for life against the merciless, gleaming steel.
The big Bulgarian moved neatly forward, bent over at the waist, his strong arms extended, hands open before him in the practised wrestler’s guard and attack. His feet did not leave the ground as he sidled forward, and his eyes never moved from the Italian’s right arm. The latter, snarling and panting, retreated slightly, then began to circle carefully, his small eyes searching for the opening through which he could leap in and drive home his steel.