Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/107

 there was bad blood between the two and they had waited hungrily until the boss gave the word; now fought to hurt, to maim, all but to kill.

Lander had seen street fights in St. Louis but none that were so cold-bloodedly ferocious as this. It impressed him as being more deadly than an exchange of shots on Bloody Island. As he followed the wheel of legs and arms another couple fell to.

In this abrupt fashion, with no preliminaries to gloss the proceedings, those men who had antipathies to settle immediately came to blows and clinches. Then more slowly followed those who had no grievances to settle. Once committed to battle the latter quickly discovered their blood was hot and responded to the primitive lust.

Inside of ten minutes only Prevost, Long Simons, Porker and Lander were left standing. It was brutal work. Prevost glided among the combatants, pulling one off his man to prevent murder, urging another to a greater resistance, kicking a jaw that was endeavoring to bite into a bronzed neck, stabilizing the mêlée so his loss of man-power would be the minimum and involve nothing more serious than a broken bone.

After twenty minutes the defeated were