Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/244

232 straightened my legs out I drove my feet into the stomach of my antagonist. He went over on his back, and I went over on top of him and closed the incident. He had me whipped. I was completely done out and three more falls would have ended me, but he got scared and wanted to end the fight."

The next man selected to discipline Jones was a yard-master, named Jim Williams. When Williams saw the fighter for the first time he laughed at him.

"Are you the artist that has licked all the engineers on the middle division?" asked Jim with a quizzical smile.

Jones showed plainly that he was embarrassed. He always looked so when he knew that a man was trying to pick a quarrel with him. He answered that he had done the best he could for those who had come up against him, and Jim laughed some more. Three or four seconds were now wasted in preliminary talk, and then the two climbed into an empty box and shut the door. The men on the outside only listened to catch a word that would give them some idea as to how the fight was