CHAPTER XXII.
THREAT OF SPIKES.
The music broke off in the middle of a run. The group at the bar pressed forward, all eager to see how this strange outlaw, who had dared them to collect the price on his head, would acquit himself against a whisky-crazed lumberjack. Delores, her interest really captured by the upstanding figure of the newcomer and clinched by that livid horseshoe scar upon his high forehead, made faltering effort to halt the trouble she had started.
"Back to your kennel, you yellow dog!" she ordered. "I'll dance with you when you pull off them spiked boots. Be yourself and show some sense."
She tried to throw herself in front of Childress and take the brunt of the jealous rush. But Childress swept her to one side and behind him.
The first blow of the contest momentarily stopped the adversary who had thundered forward with huge hands outstretched in the obvious intent to grip the sergeant's throat.
Slightly taller than Childress and much heavier, the Swede shook himself. For a second his close-set, turquoise eyes blazed downward. Then, with lowered head, he rushed again.
That Childress had not been in the path of the human steam roller, that he had side-stepped and was urging Sven Larsen to wait a minute and have his girl returned to him, appeared only to increase the logger's fury. In the next few minutes the sergeant had no thoughts to spare from his blows and footwork.
Larsen abandoned his futile rushing tactics and tried to connect with mallet-like swings. Had one of them landed true, the innocent cause of his jealous rage must have gone to sleep for an uncertain length of time. Although strictly an amateur in all his sports, Childress had developed considerable boxing skill in his barrack days at Regina and by way of exercise in lonely posts from the Yukon to the Arctic; yet, clumsy as was the woodsman's attack, its weight taxed him to avoid being knocked out.
That Larsen shed his return attack as though it were from feather pillows instead of reasonably seasoned fists was disconcerting. The skin of the logger's face was doubtless tough as leather from years of outdoor work in all sorts of weather; moreover, it was heavily bearded and, as yet, showed no mark. Childress was already bleeding in a couple of places from scraping blows which he had not been able altogether to avoid.
The sergeant had no "war" with the Swede. Could he have ended the futile contest by clinching and crying enough, he would have been tempted to do so for the sake of his mission. But, remembering Larsen's threat to finish him, he dared not risk putting himself under such disadvantage.