"Well, there are two or three that won't be able to get around at all." He meditatively stroked the knuckles of his right hand, which were badly bruised. "But the balance will be here to-morrow. These are just the mildest-mannered ones—the family men, you might say. The others will show up gradual. You see, if there had been any fighting going on here, I'd have got most of them right off the bat, but there wasn't any inducement to offer except hard work, so they wasn't quite so anxious to commence."
"Humph! There ought to be enough excitement before long to satisfy any one," said Boyd, with a trace of worry in his voice.
"As sure as you're a foot high!" exclaimed George, hopefully. "It's the only way we'll get that ship loaded on time. All we need is a riot or two."
A man passed them trundling a heavy truck, but seeing Big George, he paused, wiped the sweat from his face, then grinned and winked fraternally.
"Hey! If this work is too heavy for you, why don't you quit?" growled Balt, but strangely enough the fellow took no offence. Instead, he closed his swollen eye for a second time, then spat upon his hands, and, as he struggled with his burden, grunted pleasantly:
"I pretty near—got you, Georgie. If you hadn't 'a' ducked, we'd 'a' been at it yet, eh?"
Balt smiled in turn, then gingerly felt of the knob behind his ear.
"Did you have a fight with him?" queried Emerson.
"Not exactly a fight, but he put this nubbin on my conch," answered the fisherman. "He's a tough proposition, one of the best we've got."
"What was the trouble?"