Part 38 (2/2)

”I'm not afraid,” replied Jerry, and pushed him up against the wall.

Without delay a rough-and-tumble fight ensued.

”Give it to him, d.i.c.k!”

”Do the hayseed up!”

”Knock him into the middle of next week!”

These and a dozen other cries arose on the air, and the crowd kept increasing until fully a hundred spectators surrounded the pair.

d.i.c.k Lanning had caught Jerry unfairly, but the youth soon managed to shake him off, and, hauling back, gave him a clean blow on the end of his unusually long nose, which caused the blood to spurt from that organ in a stream.

”He's tapped d.i.c.k's nose!”

”My! wasn't that a blow, though!”

”The country lad is game!”

Wild with rage, d.i.c.k Lanning endeavored to close in again. Jerry stopped the movement this time by a blow on the chest which sent him staggering back several feet into the crowd.

”What's the matter, d.i.c.k?”

”Don't let him use you like that.”

”I'll fix him!” howled the bully, and rushed at our hero a third time.

Again he hit Jerry, this time in the chin. But our hero's blood was now up, and, calculating well, he struck a square blow in the left eye that knocked the bully flat.

”d.i.c.k is knocked out!”

”That country jay is a corker!”

”Git up, d.i.c.k. Yer eye is turnin' all black!”

”Better let him go, he's too much for you!”

d.i.c.k Lanning was slow in coming to the front. The eye was not only black, but it was closing rapidly.

”He's got a stone in his fist--he don't fight fair,” he growled to his friends.

”I have nothing in my fist,” retorted Jerry. ”If he wants anymore, I fancy I can accommodate him, although I don't care to fight.”

d.i.c.k Lanning was uneasy. He glanced toward his friends and pa.s.sed a signal to one of his cronies.

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