Just as his late tormentor had lounged forward into a careless guard and an insolent oath, Ernest felt himself quickly but firmly pushed aside, while Jack Windsor stood like a lion in the path.
‘Take it out of me, ye cursed infernal bully; what the devil is it to you if a gentleman likes to have his colonial experience this way? You’re a deal too fond of showin’ off and taking the change out of men that isn’t your match. Now you’ve dropped in for it lucky. Mind yourself.’
The crowd closed in with great though unspoken delight at this prospect of a real good fight. They intended to interfere directly the new chum, as they called him, and ’Bouncing Bob’ had had the first flutter. But here was a ‘dark horse,’ evidently good for a close heat. What a glorious relief from the monotony of their daily dodging along the road with stubborn and impoverished sheep!
‘Bouncing Bob,’ though a smart fellow enough with his hands, liked a small allowance of weight, science, or pluck; he was better at a winning than an uphill fight. He now distinctly felt that the chances in the contest would be likely to be the other way.
Mr. John Windsor did not leave him long in doubt. Quick as lightning his left was in, and though by a rapid counter Bob managed to score a smack that counted for first blood, it was apparent that he was no match for the stranger, who was at once stronger, more active, and more scientific.
A couple of inches shorter, Jack Windsor was the heavier man. Bob’s activity gave him the chance of escape from two falls, one of which nearly finished the fray; but he failed to come so well away from a right-handed feint, which occasioned his catching finally a terrific left-hander, sending him down so decisively that he saw no particular use in coming to time.
‘I suppose I may as well give you best,’ he said, rising with some difficulty and showing an apparently fatally ensanguined countenance; ‘I didn’t begin except for a bit of chaff. It’s making a darned fuss about a —— new chum.’
With this Parthian shaft he departed, to be in readiness for the flock when cut off; while Jack Windsor amused himself whistling softly. Before he replaced his shirt he said, ‘Now, look here, boys; we don’t want to interfere with anybody, but this gentleman here is my master for the time, and any one who wants to take the change out of him will have to come to me first.’
‘All right,’ said one of the crowd; ‘it won’t do Bouncing Bob any harm to get a floorer or two, he’s only being paid for many a dab he’s given himself.’
Just at this moment a great clatter of bells was heard, and the overseer rode in at a gallop on a barebacked steed, with all the camp horses before him.