“Sometimes a cornered rat is dangerous. Get out of my way!”
“I will when I’m through with you—I’ll get out of your way and let you crawl home after you’ve had the thrashing of your life.” As he uttered this threat Berlin, having his coat already unbuttoned, suddenly snapped it off and flung it into the waiting hands of Sleuth Piper. “I’m going to smash your face!” he shouted. “I’ll teach you to shoot inoffensive dogs, you cheap cur!”
He sprang forward with the final insulting word on his lips and aimed a blow at Grant’s mouth. Quick as a flash the young Texan ducked and sidestepped, permitting Berlin’s fist to shoot over his shoulder. Untouched, he drove his own right fist with staggering force against the solar plexus of his assailant, stopping that rush in a twinkling; in another twinkling the knuckles of his left hand crashed full and fair on the point of Barker’s jaw, and the would-be avenger of Silver Tongue crumpled like a frost-struck autumn leaf and went down.
THE WOULD-BE AVENGER OF SILVER TONGUE CRUMPLED LIKE A LEAF AND WENT DOWN. —Page 280.
It was done so quickly that the boys who had gathered to see Berlin thrash the Texan scarcely had time to catch a breath before they beheld Grant, his fists clenched, his face ashen and terrible, his lips drawn back from his set teeth, standing over the fallen fellow as if ready to leap upon him as he lay and beat out of his body what breath of life might linger there. But it was Grant’s eyes that terrified them the most, for they were the eyes of a wild beast aroused to the most frightful fury; and Piper, dropping the coat and falling back, screamed aloud:
“Stop him, fellers—stop him, or he’ll kill Bern sure!”
Somehow it seemed as if that cry brought Rodney Grant to his senses, for slowly his fists unclenched and his hands dropped at his sides, while, with a hissing sound like the intake of steam, he drew a long breath that filled his chest to its utmost capacity.
“Don’t worry,” he said, and there was something of that same indescribable, awesome touch in his voice; “I won’t touch him again. The poor fool can’t fight, anyhow. I’ve tried to keep peaceable and decent; but, now that you’ve made it impossible for me to do so, if there are any friends of his present who want to take up his fight I sure hope they won’t be backward about it; for we may as well have the matter settled right now, to prevent any further uncertainty or annoyance.”
But there was no one who showed the slightest desire to take up this challenge, even Rollins, who had once browbeaten and insulted the boy from Texas, slinking behind Chub Tuttle’s roly-poly body in a way that plainly betokened an amazing respect for Grant’s fighting powers, at least. Seeing this, the faintest shadow of an inexpressibly contemptuous smile flitted across the defiant lad’s face.