The cowboy lifted Johnnie forward in the morris chair, and held away the big shirt from breast and shoulders. What he saw brought him upright like a pistol shot, his face suddenly scarlet, his mustache whipping up and down, and that eye of his glowering at the longsh.o.r.eman ferociously.

"Caesar Augustus, Philobustus, Hennery Clay!" he burst out. "Bla-a-ack a-a-and _blu-u-ue_!"

"And, oh, listen what _else_ he did!" Cis went on. "The uniform you gave to Johnnie----"

"Yas?"

"_He put it in the stove!_"

One-Eye stared. "He put it in the _stove_?" he repeated, but as if this really was quite beyond belief.

"My--my scout suit," added Johnnie, who was too worn out to weep.

"The priceless brute!" announced Father Pat.

"Yes, and all of Johnnie's books, he burned them, too," Cis added.

But One-Eye's mind dwelt upon the uniform. "He put it in the stove!" he drawled. "That khaki outfit I give t' the boy! He burned it! And it fresh outen the store!"

"The medal, too, One-Eye! Johnnie's father's medal! It was in the coat.

So all that's left is the shoes!"

"All that's left is the shoes," growled One-Eye. "He burned the hat, and the coat, and--and all. After I'd paid good money fer 'em! The _gall_!

The _cheek_! The _impydence_!" He drew a prodigious breath.

"Go ahead! Sing about it!" taunted Barber.

One-Eye was in anything but a singing mood. Spurred by that taunt, of a sudden he began to do several startling things: with a gurgle of rage, he s.n.a.t.c.hed off the wide hat, flung it to the floor with all his might, sprang upon it, ground it into the boards with both heels; jerked off his gauntlets and hurled them down with the hat; next wriggled out of his coat and added it to the pile under his boots; then ran his hands wildly through his hair, so that it stood up as straight as the hair on his breeches stood out; and, last of all, fell to pushing back his sleeves.

Fascinated the others watched him. Was this the good-natured, shy, bashful, quiet One-Eye, this red-faced, ramping, stamping madman?

He addressed Barber: "Oh, y' ornery, mean, low-down, sneakin' coyote!"

He took a long, leaping step over the things on the floor--a step in the direction of the longsh.o.r.eman. As he sprang, he shifted his tobacco quid from one cheek to the other. "Say! I'm plumb chuck-full o' y'r goin's-on! I'm stuffed with y'r fool pre-_form_-ances! I'm fed up t' the neck with 'em! and _sick_ o' 'em! and right here, _and_ now, you and me is a-goin' t' have this business O-U-T!"

"He knows how t' spell it," remarked Barber, facetiously.

"Heaven strengthen the arm o' ye!" cried the Father.

Head ducked, hands out like a boxer, One-Eye again began an advance toward Big Tom, doing a sort of a skating step--a glide. And as he came on, Barber threw back his head and guffawed. "Oh, haw! haw! haw! haw!

haw!" he shouted. "Y' don't mean y're goin' t' _finish_ me! Oh, haw!

haw! haw!"

"A haw-haw's aig in a hee-hee's nest!" returned One-Eye, and spat on his hands. "Finish y' is what I aim t' do! I been waitin' _and_ waitin'!"

(The cowboy was saying more in these few minutes, almost, than he had during all of his former visits to the flat!) "I've waited since the first time I clapped my eye on y'! I'm the mule that waited seven years!

I been storin' up my kick! And now it's growed to a humdinger! Y've whaled this here boy, and tied up this here girl! His face is cut, and his back is black, and raw, and bleedin'! Wal, it's Tom Barber's turn t'

git a hidin'!--the worst hidin' a polecat ever did git! So! Where'll y'

take it? In this house, 'r outside?" The question was asked with a final, emphatic stomp, an up-throw of the disheveled head, a spreading outward of both gartered arms.

"That's the way t' talk!" vowed the Father. "Shure, a coward needs his own punishment handed t' him!--Take yer whippin', Tom Barber, and take it like a man! For it's a whippin' that's justly comin' t' ye this mornin', as all the neighborhood'll agree!"

"Where?" One-Eye insisted, for the longsh.o.r.eman had not replied to the question. "Let's don't lose no time! I'm a-goin' t' hand y' a con-vul-sion! That's it! A con-vul-sion! I'm goin' t' pull the last, livin' kink outen y'! Two shakes o' a lamb's tail, and I'll show y' a civy-lized ma.s.sacree! Yip-yip-yip-_yee-ow_!"

"Goin' t' wipe me out, eh? Goin' t' put me t' bed?" Barber laid down his pipe.

"Goin' t' ship y' t' the Hospital!" Side gliding to the stove, the cowboy delivered up his quid.

"Hee! hee!" giggled the longsh.o.r.eman. "Guess I'll jus' knock that other eye out!"

One-Eye was waltzing back. "Don't count y'r chickens 'fore they're hatched!" he warned. "'Cause here y're gittin' a man o' y'r own size, y'

great, big, overbearin' lummox!"

Barber held up a hand. "This ain't no place t' fight," he protested.

"The old man'd hear."

"Y' can't git outen it that-a-way!" shouted One-Eye, arms in the air.

"They's miles o' room outside! Come down into the yard! Mosey! Break trail! Vamose!" He waved the other out.

Buoyed up by so much excitement, Johnnie managed to stand for a moment.

"One-Eye!" he cried, all grat.i.tude and pride; and, "One-Eye!" Cis echoed, her palms together in a dumb plea for him to do his best.

The Westerner gave her a look which promised every result that lay in his power. Then with a jerk of the head at Father Pat, and again "Yip-yipping" l.u.s.tily, he bore down upon the grinning longsh.o.r.eman, who was filling the hall doorway.

They met, and seized each other. Big Tom took One-Eye by either shoulder, those great baboon hands clamping themselves over the top joints of the Westerner's arms. The latter had Barber by the front of his coat and by an elbow. For a moment they hung upon the sill. Then, pivoting, they swung beyond it. As Father Pat closed the door upon them, at once there came to the ears of the trio in the kitchen, the sounds of a rough-and-tumble battle.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

ONE-EYE FIGHTS

THOSE sounds of combat which penetrated to an anxious kitchen were deep, rasping breathings, muttered exclamations and grunts, a shuffling of feet that was not unlike a musicless dance, a swish-swishing, as if the Italian janitress were mopping up the hall floor, and a series of soft poundings.

Yet the battle itself was not amounting to much. In fact, to speak strictly, no fight was going on at all.

In the first place, the hall was narrow, and gave small scope for a contest on broad, generous lines--even had One-Eye and Big Tom known how to wage such a bout; and both men knew little concerning the science of self-defense. What happened--without any further abusive language--was this: the longsh.o.r.eman and the cowboy (while using due caution against coming too close to the flimsy railing of the stairs) each set about throwing his antagonist.

One-Eye sought to trip the longsh.o.r.eman, but was unsuccessful, finding those two ma.s.sive pillars, Big Tom's legs, as securely fixed to the rough flooring as if they were a part of the building itself. With his tonglike arms, Barber pressed down with all his might on the shoulders of the Westerner; and that moment in which One-Eye weakened the firmness of his own stand by thrusting out a boot to dislodge his enemy, the longsh.o.r.eman had his chance; with a smothered voicing of his disgust (for One-Eye wished to make as little noise as possible in that semi-public place), down went the cowboy to his knees.

Several brunette heads were thrust out of doors above and below.

Melodious Italian voices exclaimed and questioned and replied, mingling with cries in Yiddish and East Side English. All the while One-Eye clasped Big Tom about the legs, and held on grimly, and received, on either side of his weather-beaten countenance, a score of hard slaps.

These were skull-jarring, and not to be endured. So One-Eye thrust his head between Big Tom's spraddled legs; then, calling upon every atom of his strength, he forced his shoulders to follow his head, loosening the longsh.o.r.eman's clutch; and with a grunt, down came the giant, falling upon the cowboy (which accounted for another grunt), and pinning him to the dusty floor.

Sprawled, as it were, head and tail, a contest for upper place now began. One-Eye writhed like a hairy animal (this the swish-swishing).

Being both slender and agile, he managed to wriggle out from beneath Big Tom, who instantly turned about and caught him, and once more laid upon him the whole of his great, steel-constructed bulk.

The pair strained and rolled. After several changes of position, in which neither man was at all damaged except in his appearance, Barber came to the top and stayed there, like the largest potato in a basket.