“Why, he can’t fight at all,” said Grant. “I wonder how he ever got the notion that he could?”
“Knocking the block off such chaps as Carl Duckelstein, I calculate,” said Phil.
“I reckon that’s right. Heaps of these self-judged fighters get false notions of their scrapping abilities through whipping fellows no way their equals; and when that happens they’re pretty sure to go prancing round in search of other worlds to conquer, until somebody hands them what’s coming to them.”
Slowly and weakly Simpson lifted his head and stared around like one just beginning to comprehend. There was still a ringing in his brain, but the lights had ceased to flash, and he perceived his own position and observed the fellow he had sought to attack standing near at hand, untouched, steady and now calm as ever. For the first time he began to understand that this calmness did not indicate timidity, and, understanding, he was filled with awe bordering on fear.
“I reckon, stranger,” said Grant, “that you’re not hurt much; but I hope you’ve tumbled to the fact that you can’t fight any more than a gopher with the croup. If this brook belongs to your governor, and you’d been half decent about asking us not to fish in it, I reckon we’d found plenty of other places to enjoy the sport. But you chose to come at us with spurs on, and you got bucked a plenty when you tried your broncho busting.”
This caused Springer to laugh at last. “The idiom of the West is certainly expressive,” he observed. “And one time we thought you a fake because you didn’t say ‘galoot’ and ‘varmint’ and such bub-book lingo of supposed-to-be Westerners.”
Simpson made no retort, and, as he continued to sit there, the boys gathered up their tackle and the basket containing the trout and prepared to depart.
“If, on further consideration,” said Grant, turning to him, “you should hold to the notion that you still have a grievance, you’ll find us over at Pleasant Point.”
“So long, Simpy,” called Phil, unable to repress a parting fling. “Hope your headache don’t lul-last long.”
They were some distance away when they heard him, his courage revived, shouting after them: