Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/77

 "‘No, no,' said Tib, pettishly, 'I mean in the picture we were showing Finzer, where the man with a head like a bean knocked out a tall, angular shrimp.'

"I explained listlessly, and was annoyed when he began going through with some physical-culture stunts. 'It's so different,' he observed, ducking nimbly and sparring at the centre pole. 'Ah, would you!' Ke-thump! 'When I was young it was a simple rushing, clinching pastime, with only the ear and eyebrow hold barred. And what was that hook the man with the freckled legs operated so neatly in folio number six?'

"‘I'm dead sick of this fighting-business,' I snarled, as my jaw gave a jump. 'Ain't you got enough?'

"‘Never, my child,' he said, softly but firmly. 'Watch me.'

"And hang me, sir, but if he didn't walk to the exit and begin calling Mr. McBurr a variety of undignified names in the trappers' patois.

"The heathens speedily gathered around, awed by his hardihood, and two squaws began chanting his requiem. Of course the harangue soon brought Chief Chuck on the canter, and he was about to lave his hands in Tib's blood when the old sport called on him to tarry in his immediate footsteps and listen. Tib's proposal was simply this: He