ONE FROM THE SHOULDER.
Spluttering, choking, snarling, the astonished recipient of this summary treatment scrambled to his feet, dripping and as enraged as a mad bull. Brushing the water from his eyes with a sweep of his hand, he beheld Grant, hands on his hips, standing as if waiting, wholly unconcerned.
With a roar, Simpson splashed out of the water, his boot-legs full and sloshing, and charged at Rodney.
“Oh,” said Springer, recovering two of the trout from the water and tossing them back into the basket, “the performance is just beginning in the big tut-tent; the circus has started.”
The performance, however, terminated quite as suddenly as it had commenced. Stepping deftly aside as the fellow rushed, Grant swung hard and accurately, planting his fist against Simpson’s jaw. Down with a crash went the pugnacious rustic, dazed and wondering at a tremendous display of fireworks, which seemed to be celebrating a belated Fourth, in his upper story. Indeed, for the time being the fellow had not the slightest idea of what had happened to him.
It was a good thing for Jim Simpson that all the fight had thus quickly been knocked out of him, for Springer saw the old wild light of ungovernable rage blaze in Grant’s eyes, and beheld on the face of the Texan an expression which seemed to threaten utter annihilation for his antagonist. And, as Rod took a stride in the direction of the chap who was weakly trying to lift himself upon one elbow, Phil cried sharply:
“That’s enough, Rod! Dud-don’t hit him again, or you will knock his bub-bub-block off.”
The Texan checked himself sharply, and the fighting flare faded from his eyes, while his face resumed its normal expression.
“You’ve whipped him a’ready,” asserted Phil, still apprehensive. “You took the fuf-fight out of him with the fuf-first wallop. If he’s got any sense at all, he won’t want any more.”
Three times Simpson attempted to lift himself before he was able to sit up, and when he succeeded he was forced to hold his swimming head in his hands. His appearance was so pitiful that neither of the boys felt in the least inclined to laugh.