Page:Lefty o' the Bush.djvu/97

 batsmen; and much of his success as a pitcher had doubtless come through the awe which he had inspired.

"Hey!" croaked Riley suddenly. "I guess this here's gone 'bout fur enough."

But, with his first movement to interfere, he was seized by more than one pair of hands, jerked back, and held.

"Guess again!" cried Larry Stark. "Hoover forced it on the boy, and now he'll have to take his medicine."

"That's right! That's right!" shouted half a hundred voices.

"You bet it's right!" roared a big millman in the crowd. "If this Bancroft bunch tries to meddle now in a square fight, they'll have the whole o' Kingsbridge on top of 'em."

Possibly a free-for-all fight might have broken out at this point, but suddenly Tom Locke's fist fell on Hoover's jaw with a crack like a pistol report, and the Bancroft pitcher's legs seemed to melt beneath him.

Prone upon the trampled ground he sank in a huddled heap, while Locke, lowering his hands at his sides, stepped back and stood looking down at him. A hush came over the crowd. The fallen man made a blind, feeble effort to lift himself,