CHAPTER IV.
WELCOME SHOWS HIS HAND--WITH SOMETHING IN IT.
"Why didn't you bring the whole gang, Perry?" inquired Chub, with oneof his most tantalizing grins. "Billy Dill seems to be missing."
Clipperton, easily swayed by any one who took the right course, hatedsubterfuge, and was peculiarly outspoken.
"Dill sprained his ankle," said he, in his usual short, jerkysentences. "That's why he's not here. He wanted to come, but couldn't.I reckon there are enough of us, anyway."
"I reckon there are," remarked Chub, his grin broadening dangerously."All you fellows need is a few feathers to be a whole tribe."
A sharp breath rushed through Clipperton's lips, his muscles tightened,his fists clenched, and the war-look of his savage ancestors sweptacross his face. Chub's fling had caught him in the old wound.
"Cut it out, Chub," muttered Matt; "Clip's not responsible for this."
Perry also said something in a low tone to Clipperton. The latter'sface was still black and relentless, but he held himself in check. Mattadvanced a little toward Perry and turned slightly so as to face theboys with him.
"If it's a fight you fellows want," said he, "I guess you'll find thelatch-string out. I want to give you the other side of this, though,before you proceed to mix things."
"That's right," snapped Perry, "crawfish! It's about what I'd expect ofyou."
There was a glint in Matt's eyes as he whirled on Perry.
"You can butt in later," said he, "and I'll come more than half-way togive you all the chance you want. Just now I'm going to have my say,Dace Perry, and I don't think"--Matt's voice was like velvet, but itcut like steel--"_I don't think_ you're going to interfere."
"We've got Perry's side of it," said "Ratty" Spangler, a youth wellnicknamed, "and that's enough for _us_. Eh, boys?"
The chorus of affirmatives was short one voice--that of Splinters.
"If I'm in on this," spoke up Splinters, "we play the game right or wedon't play it at all." He fronted Matt. "Perry says, King," he went on,"that you've had a grouch against him for a long while, and that youtried to work it off by taking him from behind and slamming him intothe road."
"I did have a grouch and I did slam him into the road," said Matt. "IfChub had been around I'd have left it to him--but Chub wasn't handy."
Then, briefly, Matt told of the affair at the gate. Chub growledangrily and sprang forward, only to be caught by his chum and pushedback.
"Wait!" cautioned Matt. "I guess you'll get all the rough-house youwant, Chub, before we're done."
A chorus of jeers came from Perry's followers--Splinters excepted.
"That'll do me," said Splinters, turning on his heel and starting off.
"Where you going, Tuohy?" shouted Perry.
"Home," was the curt response.
"You're taking this tenderfoot's word against mine?"
"I'm sorry----"
"Come back here, then!"
"Sorry King didn't do more than slam you into the road. Oh, you're thelimit."
"Either you come back here or you quit the team," yelled Perry, hisvoice quivering with rage.
"Much obliged," flung back Splinters, keeping on into the timber; "it'sa pleasure to quit."
The rest hooted at him as he vanished. This defection from the ranksbrought the tension of the whole affair to the snapping-point. Whathappened immediately after the departure of Splinters came decisively,and with a rush.
Spangler and Perry, hoping to catch Matt at a disadvantage, hurledthemselves at him. An instinct of fair play held Clipperton back. Heturned for an instant to see what the other three members of the squadwere going to do, and in that instant another momentous thing happened.
Chub, hovering in the background, saw Spangler and Perry dashing towardMatt. Brass knuckle-dusters glimmered on the fingers of Perry's rightfist. Chub caught the flash of the knuckle-dusters and, being too faraway to place himself shoulder to shoulder with Matt, he let fly withthe stone he had been holding in his hand.
In his excitement Chub did not throw accurately. The stone missed Perryby a foot and struck Clipperton a grazing blow on the side of the head.Clipperton staggered back, a trickle of blood rilling over his cheek,and whirled with a fierce cry.
Matt, notwithstanding the fact that Perry and Spangler claimed most ofhis attention, had witnessed Chub's disastrous work with the missile.Just as Clipperton whirled, Matt leaped backward and threw up hishand. This move, coming at that precious instant, gave Clipperton theimpression that it was Matt who had hurled the stone.
In everything that Clipperton did he was lightning-quick. The blow hadaroused all the passion that lay at the depths of his nature. With theface of a demon, and with a swiftness that was wonderful, he launchedhimself forward as though hurled by a catapault. The impact of hisbody knocked Perry out of his way, and in a twinkling he and Matt wereengaged, hammer and tongs.
On occasion Matt could be every whit as sudden in his movements as wasClipperton. Just now his quarrel was not with Clipperton, and he hatedthe twist fate had given the course of events. Nevertheless Clipperton,his half-tamed nature fully aroused, demanded rough handling if Mattwas to save himself.
Perry, perhaps not averse to having the fight taken off his hands,ordered his team-mates to keep back. In a group the five runnerswatched the progress of the battle. It was the first time any of themhad ever seen Clipperton cast aside all restraint and display suchmurderous energy.
The quarter-blood was about Matt's own age, and his perfectly moldedbody and limbs were endued with tremendous power. But he had more powerthan prowess, and his fiery energy lacked the cool-headed calculationwhich alone could make it effective.
On the other hand, Matt King had science as well as strength, andenergy as well as self-possession. No matter what the pinch he was in,he could think calmly, and with a swiftness and precision which alonewould have won many a battle.
Chub knew that Matt had no love for a brawl; but Chub also knew thatMatt tried always to play square with himself, and that if brawls camethere was no dodging or side-stepping, but straight business right fromthe word "go." There was straight business now, and in many points itwas brilliant.
Again and again Clipperton, his eyes like coals, his straight blackhair tumbled over his forehead, and his face smeared with the red fromhis wound, hurled himself at Matt only to be beaten back. The onefeature of the set-to that stood out beyond all others was this, thatMatt was merely on the defensive. The fury of his opponent offeredopening after opening of which Matt could have taken advantage; yet,strangely enough to Perry and his followers, Matt held his hand.Watching Clipperton constantly with keen, unwavering eyes, he counteredevery blow and beat off every attack.
Baffled at every point, Clipperton at last grew desperate. Rushingin he tried to "clinch," and Matt, while seeming to meet him on thisground, suddenly caught him about the middle and flung him over thesteep bank into the canal.
A moment of silence followed the loud splash Clipperton made in thewater, a silence broken by a shout from Perry.
"Let's throw the tenderfoot after Clip, fellows! Into the canal withhim!"
After the object-lesson which Matt had given the runners in the manlyart, no one of them was eager to try conclusions alone with the"tenderfoot," but by going after him in a crowd there was little riskand an almost certain prospect of success.
Chub ran to his chum's side. Just as Perry, Spangler and the othersstarted forward to carry out Perry's suggestion, another actor appearedon the scene, heralding his arrival with a whoop that went thunderingamong the cottonwoods.
"Scatter, ye onnery rapscallions! Here's me, Eagle-eye Perkins, theretired Pirate o' the Plains, drorin' a bead on every last one o'ye with ole Lucretia Borgia. Scatter, I tell ye, an' don't force meto revive the gory times that was, when I wants to be peaceful an'civilized."
Perry and his friends stayed their advance abruptly and all eyes turnedon Welcome Perkins. The reformed road-agent had never looked moredes
perate than he did then. He was wet, and singed, and his clotheswere burned in places, but the ends of his mustache stuck truculentlyupward, his wooden pin was planted firmly in the moist earth, and hisantiquated six-shooter was swaying back and forth in the most approvedborder hold-up style.
In Phoenix Welcome was generally believed to be a boaster, with a pastas harmless as that of a divinity student, and his loudly voiced regretfor old deeds of lawlessness was supposed to result from a desire to be"in the lime-light" and to play to the galleries; but "Lucretia Borgia"looked big and dangerous, and there was no telling how far the erraticold humbug might go with the weapon.
In the canal Clipperton was already swimming to the opposite bank,apparently but little the worse for his fight and his ducking. It wasclear that he was going to climb out and run for town.
"Come on, boys!" called Perry sullenly, facing about and starting alongthe bank at a slow trot.
The rest fell in behind him and trailed out of sight among the trees.Chub began to laugh.
"Why, you old practical joke!" he gasped, "that gun's about asdangerous as a piece of bologna sausage."
A twinkle stole into Welcome's faded eyes. "Don't ye know, son," saidhe, "it ain't the dangerousness of a thing that counts so much as thepopperler impression about its _bein'_ dangerous? Lucretia Borgia ain'tspoke a word fer ten year, an' she's all choked up with rust now, an'couldn't talk if she wanted to. But the sight o' her's enough--oh, yes,it's a-plenty.
"I seen the hull o' this fracas, an' the ole sperrit that I'm tryin'to fight down an' conker stirred around inside o' me to that extentthat I jest had to take holt or bust my b'iler. I heerd that youngwhipper-snapper say he'd tipped his hand to Matt at the gate an'had come here to show it. Waal, bumby I reckoned that I'd show _my_hand--an' with somethin' in it. It's jest a bit of a sample o' what Iuseter be in the ferocious ole times. But come on; let's fergit aboutfights an' fightin', which is plumb unworthy of civilized folks, an' goup to the house."