Interrupting suddenly a muffled sound like the distant exhaust of a big engine––the meeting of a heavy boot with an obstacle on the floor. “Get up!”
A very mountain of human brawn resolved itself upward; a hand on its hips; a curse on its lips.
“You’ll apologize.”
“You damned lantern-faced––” No hiccough now, but a pause from pure physical impotence, pending a doubtful struggle against a half-dozen men.
“Order, gentlemen!” demanded the bar-keeper, adding emphasis by hammering a heavy bottle on the bar.
“Let him go,” commanded Ichabod very quietly; but they all heard through the confusion. “Let him go.”
The country was by no means the wild West of the story-papers, but it was primitive, and no man thought, then, of preventing the obviously inevitable.