At this went up a chorus of disapproval: and Goodine said, "I'll be d—d if I'm a-goin to strike the man what's jest saved my life!"
"You needn't let that worry you, Bill," replied Reddin. "We're quits there. I reckon you forget as how your mother, God bless her, saved my life, some twenty year back, when you was jest a-toddlin'. An' I vowed to her I'd be good to you the very best I knowed how. An' I've kep' my vow. But now I reckon I'm quit of it; an' if you ain't a-goin' to give me satisfaction now my hands is free, then you ain't no man at all, an' I'll try an' find some way to make you fight!"
"Jim's right!—You've got to fight, Bill!—That's fair!" and many more exclamations of like character, showed the drift of popular sentiment so plainly that Goodine exclaimed, "Well, if you sez so, it's got to be! But I don't want to hurt you, Jim Reddin; an' lick you I kin, every day in the week, an' you know it!"
"You're a liar!" remarked Jim Reddin, in a business-like voice, as the hands formed a ring.
At this some of the hands laughed, and Goodine, glancing around, caught the ghost of a smile on Laurette's face. This was all that was needed. The blood boiled up to his temples, and with an oath under his breath he sprang upon his adversary.
Smoothly and instantaneously as a shadow Reddin eluded the attack. And now his face lost its set look of injury and assumed a smile of cheerful interest. Bill Goodine, in spite of his huge bulk, had the elasticity and dash of a panther; but his quickness was nothing to that of Reddin. Once or twice the latter parried, with seeming ease, his most destructive lunges, but more often he contented himself with moving aside like a flash of light. Presently Goodine cried out,—
"Why don't yer fight, like a man, stidder skippin' out o' the road like a flea?"
"'Cause I don't want to hurt you," laughed Reddin.
But that little boastful laugh delayed his movements, and Goodine was upon him. Two or three terrible short-arm blows were exchanged, and then the two men grappled.
"Let 'em be," ordered McElvey. "They'd better wrastle than fight."