"You lying hound!" he shouted. "If crime's been done, you've committed it."
Ditty slid back a step and met the younger man's charge with a coolness that showed his taunt had been premeditated and that this result was expected. As the enraged Drew closed in, the mate met him with a frightful swing to the side of his bandaged head.
Drew's head rocked on his shoulders, and for a moment he was dazed. Blood flowed from under the bandage, and in an instant his cheek and neck were besmeared with it. The bucko, with the experience of long years of rough fighting, landed a second blow before the confused Drew could put up his defense again.
But that was the last blow Ditty did land. Drew's brain cleared suddenly. Hot rage filled his heart. He forgot his surroundings. He forgot that Ruth stood by to see his metamorphosis from a civilized man into an uncivilized one. He forgot everything but the leering face of the lying scoundrel before him, and he proceeded to change that face into a bruised mask.
His skill and speed made the mate, with only brute force behind him, seem like a child. Drew closed Ditty's remaining eye, split his upper lip, puffed both his cheeks till his nose was scarcely a ridge between them, and ended by landing a left hook on the point of the jaw that knocked the mate down and out.
As Drew fell back from the fray, which had lasted only seconds, so swift was the pace, Tyke seized him.
"You've done enough, boy! You've done enough, Allen!" he exclaimed. "Leave life in the scoundrel so we can get the truth out of him."