Part 4 (1/2)

Pan looked steadily at her tear-wet face, seeing Lucy differently. She was not a baby any more. For some strange reason beyond his understanding he was furious with her. Pus.h.i.+ng her aside he strode toward the group of boys, leering close by.

d.i.c.k Hardman, a strapping big lad now, edged back into the crowd. Pan violently burst into it, forcing the boys back, until he confronted his adversary. On d.i.c.k's sallow face the brown freckles stood out prominently. Something in the look and advance of Pan had intimidated him. But he bl.u.s.tered, he snarled.

”You're a skunk,” said Pan fiercely, and struck out with all his might.

One hour from that moment they were still fighting. They had fought from the grove to the schoolyard, from there down the road and back again. b.l.o.o.d.y, ragged, black, they beat, tore, hit, bit and clawed each other. The teacher, wringing her hands, called upon the other boys to separate the belligerents. They had tried, but in vain, and only got kicked for their pains. The girls, most of them, screamed and cried. But not Lucy! White faced and with dilated eyes she watched that struggle. All the spectators, even the youngest, seemed to recognize it as a different kind of a fight from any that had ever occurred before. At last the teacher sent some of the children for help from the nearest farmhouse.

d.i.c.k would lower his head and lunge at Pan, trying to b.u.t.t him in the abdomen. Twice he had bowled Pan over, to his distinct advantage. But the crafty Pan, timing another and last attack of this kind, swung up his knee with terrific force, square into d.i.c.k's face.

Down d.i.c.k plumped, rolled over on his back, yelling loudly. Suddenly he ceased, he raised up on one elbow, he spat blood, and something that rattled on the gravel. A tooth! His grimy hand went trembling to his blood-stained mouth. He felt of his front teeth. One was gone, others were loose. Vanity, d.i.c.k's distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic, suffered a terrible blow. Staggering to his feet, fetching a stone with him, he glared at Pan: ”I'll--kill--you!”

He flung the stone with deadly intent. But Pan dodged it and leaped at him. d.i.c.k ran hard toward the schoolhouse, stooping to s.n.a.t.c.h up stones, and turning to fling them at Pan. The yelling boys scattered, the frightened girls fled. Pan was not to be outdone at any kind of fight. He returned stone for stone, the last of which struck d.i.c.k low down in the leg. Like a crippled beast d.i.c.k shrieked and plunged into the schoolhouse, slamming shut the door. But Pan, rus.h.i.+ng after, grabbed up a rock and flung it so powerfully that it split the door and knocked it off the hinges.

Pan rushed in to receive full in the face a long, thick teacher's ruler thrown by d.i.c.k. It knocked him flat. Picking it up Pan brandished it and charged his enemy. d.i.c.k ran along the blackboard, and jerking up one eraser after another he threw them. His aim was poor. His strength waning. His courage had gone. As for Pan it was as if the long fight had only inspired him to renewed ferocity and might. The truth was that a hot dancing fire in Pan's blood had burned to white intensity, unquenchable and devastating.

Suddenly d.i.c.k made for the teacher's table. An idea, an inspiration showed in his renewed speed. Pan divined its purpose. Leaping upon the desks he endeavored to head d.i.c.k off. Too late! When Pan sprang off the last desk to the platform d.i.c.k had turned--with the teacher's long paper knife in his hand and baleful hate in his prominent eyes.

Later, when the children outside dared to peep into the schoolroom they neither saw nor heard anything of the fighters. But fearing they were just hiding behind the benches, ready for a renewed fusillade, not one of the pupils dared go in. The teacher had hurried down the road to meet the men some of the boys had fetched.

And these men were Jim Blake and Bill Smith who had been riding home from the range. When they entered the schoolroom with the teacher fearfully following, and only Lucy of all the scholars daring to come too, they found the fight was over.

d.i.c.k lay unconscious on the floor with a b.l.o.o.d.y forehead. Pan sat crouched on the platform, haggard and sullen, with face, s.h.i.+rt, hands all b.l.o.o.d.y.

”Ah-uh! Reckon you've been fightin' like a cowboy for sh.o.r.e this time,” said Pan's father in his matter of fact way. ”Stand up. Let's look at you.... Jim, take a look at that lad on the floor.”

While Pan painfully endeavored to get up, Blake knelt beside d.i.c.k.

”Bill, this heah rooster has had a wallop,” said Blake.

”You little cowpunchin' ruffian,” exploded Smith angrily, reaching a large arm for Pan. ”Now then.... What the h.e.l.l? ... Boy, you've been _stabbed_!”

”Yes--Dad--he stuck me--with teacher's knife,” replied Pan faintly. He tottered on his feet, and his right hand was pressed tight to his left shoulder, high up, where the broken haft of the paper knife showed between his red-stained fingers.

Bill Smith's anger vanished in alarm, and something stern and grim took its place. Just then Lucy broke away from the teacher and confronted him.

”Oh--please don't punish him, Mr. Smith,” she burst out poignantly.

”It was all my fault. I--I stuck up my nose at d.i.c.k. He said things that--that weren't nice.... I slapped him. Then he grabbed me, kissed me.... I ran to Pan--and--and told him.... Oh, that made Pan fight.”

Smith looked gravely down into the white little face with the distended violet eyes, slowly losing their pa.s.sion. He seemed to be struck with something that he had never seen before.

”Wal, Lucy, I'll not punish Pan,” he said, slowly. ”I think more of him for fightin' for you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

They did not meet again during the winter. It was a hard winter. Pan left school and stayed close to home, working for his mother, and playing less than any time before.

”I heard d.i.c.k say he'd kill you someday,” said one cowboy seriously.

”An' take it from me, kid, he's a bad hombre.”

”Ah-uh!” was all the reply Pan vouchsafed, as he walked away. He did not like to be reminded of d.i.c.k. It sent an electric spark to the deep-seated smoldering mine in his breast.