Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/116

 to be holding his tongue between his teeth he bit it cruelly. "Curse you!" he roared, spitting blood and rushing frantically to grapple his tormentor.

"Bully for ye, younker! Bleed him some more! Lawd, a big fool like that lettin' a child lick him!" howled Long Simons, shaking his man up and down in a paroxysm of joy.

"Wait'll I git my hooks into ye!" snarled Porker.

Lander swung both fists, the double smack landing on nose and eye. The nose began to bleed and the eye grew puffy.

"Haw haw! I'm waitin'!" yelled Simons, letting his man drop to the ground and crawl away while he pounded his huge hands together in delight.

"Good fighting!" applauded Prevost.

But the contest was too unequal to continue in Lander's favor. His agility and audacity in taking the fight to Porker had dazed the bully and won a temporary advantage. He had a theory of offense that might have worked out successfully could he have kept clear of the madly swinging arms. The brawny throat was sensitive, he concluded. He proved it by leaping forward and