“What?” he faintly gasped. “What’s that? Why, I’ll eat him!”
“If you try it, you will find that I digest hard,” came calmly from the stranger, who was watching the man closely. “I can read your history in short order. Numb, rum, bum. That’s enough.”
For a few moments it seemed that the big wiper would hit the stranger, but instead, he struck one of the men who had caught hold of his arm and cautioned him. The force of the blow drove the man up against the rear driving wheel of the engine and made a cut on his cheek, starting the blood. The man put up a greasy hand to wipe away the blood, saying, huskily:
“That’s all right, Mart. I was doin’ it for your good. Knowed you’d be fired if you struck him and he complained on ye. That’s all right.”
And not one of the other men said a word. It was plain that every one of them was afraid of the fellow called Mart, whom the visitor saw was the bully among the wipers.
The lips of the youth curled with scorn as he surveyed the bruiser.
“So you are a brute as well as a drinking bummer!” he exclaimed. “It’s a wonder to me how a man like you can hold any kind of a job.”
“Ya-a-a-ah!” snarled the now thoroughly angered ruffian, showing his yellow, tobacco-stained teeth. “You get out of here, or I’ll give you some of the same!”
“No, you won’t! I have dealt with brutes like you before.”
This cool defiance of the stranger, scarcely more than a boy, with smooth face and dainty hands, was something the big, greasy wiper could not understand.
“If it wasn’t for spilin’ yer fine clothes, I’d use ye fer a wiper ter finish the job on this machine,” declared Mart. “I think you’re too clean, anyhow.”
Then he ejected into his hand the quid of tobacco that had been stowed in his cheek, and, with a flirt of the hand, sent it full at the white bosom of the shirt worn by the youth.
With a leap the youth had planted his fist fairly between the eyes of the bully.
It was a clean knockout blow, delivered with marvelous skill and swiftness. The strange youth had not waited an instant before avenging the insult bestowed upon him.
The wipers gasped for breath and showed their excitement, while the engineers came hurrying toward the scene of the trouble.
“Now there’ll be blazes to pay!” whispered one man, his eyes betraying his fear.