“We’re going to fight. Is that plain?”
Red’s wide eyes mirrored his amazement.
“Aw, say!” he mumbled. “I ain’t going to fight—you!”
“Aren’t you, though?” McBride’s lips tightened. “You weren’t so particular a few weeks ago. You didn’t mind hitting me foul and then knocking me around before I could get up. You big stiff!” His tone brought the blood tingling into Garrity’s freckled face. “I don’t believe you ever fought fair in all your life. Do you want me to slap your face again?”
He took a quick step forward, his eyes blazing. Garrity, dazed, yet furiously angry, flung up one hand—and the fight was on.
As usual, Red lunged forward to get into a clinch. To his amazement he got an upper cut which drove him backward half a dozen feet where he scraped painfully against a pine trunk. Wild with pain and rage, he plunged at his opponent again, to find that this was an altogether different McBride from the one he thought he knew.
Quick on his feet, cool, competent, the scout seemed to slide out of the bear-like embrace with ease, landing a smart blow on Red’s chest as he did so. With a savage growl Garrity pulled up and whirled around. This time he would surely get him. He came forward more cautiously, muscular arms outspread. The next thing he knew he struck the ground with a jarring force which was only partly tempered by the thick bed of pine needles. Dazed a little, but undeterred, he scrambled up and leaped forward again.
But somehow Red’s moment never came. Ducking, dodging, feinting, countering, the smaller fellow simply played with his clumsy opponent. Not for a moment did he let him rest. Now and then he got in a smashing blow with all the force of his weight and muscle behind it, which brought a gasp from Garrity’s wide lips. Constantly he lured the other on to frantic rushes which took the fellow’s strength and got his wind, while McBride, with the skill he had gained in these past weeks of work, expended not even an unnecessary ounce of effort.
At last there came the moment Micky had hoped for. Sweat streaming down his face and chest, breath coming in loud gasps, Garrity staggered back from where he had been flung amongst some bushes. As he came slowly, he swayed a little, and McBride, watching his face narrowly, stiffened. A little feinting, and then a blow on the jaw with all his strength back of it, would settle things—would pay for that humiliating experience the thought of which had rankled in his memory all these weeks.
He took a quick step forward and then he paused. Something in that strained, white, dogged face before him brought to the scout a sudden strange sense of repugnance in his task. The fellow was game, all right. He would not turn tail as long as he could keep his feet and senses. But that dazed look of bewildered pain in his eyes told its own story of a suffering which was more than physical. Micky was conscious of a sudden sense of shame at the purpose in his mind; his arms fell abruptly to his sides.