Part 24 (1/2)
In no time at all, it seemed, the face of the truck man was raw, while Hiram's showed only bruises. They clinched repeatedly, and soon it became apparent that Drummond was forcing these clinches.
”You've got 'im goin', Gentle Wild Cat!” yelled Tom Gulick. ”Keep after his mush, ol'-timer! Pretty soon he won't be able to see you; then clean house with 'im!”
Drummond played for Hiram's wind now, but there was not an ounce of fat over the stomach that he hammered so repeatedly, and it seemed as if he were battering hard rubber. He was fast losing his own wind, for his life had not been so healthy as had that of the man from the Northern forests. Hiram's punis.h.i.+ng fists were finding their target more frequently now, for the truck man's defense was failing him. He was slowing up--breathing hard--gulping.
”Guess it's time to stop it, Gentle Wild Cat,” complacently observed Jim McAllen.
Then Hiram finished it. He crowded his big antagonist and beat him to his knees with blows that seemed to be skull crus.h.i.+ng. Drummond's nose and mouth were badly damaged. Both eyes were mere slits, blazing between coloring puffs. One crus.h.i.+ng, blow straight into his face as he came up defiantly sent him reeling about, head down, groping blindly.
”One more in the same place, Wild Cat!” called Gulick.
But Hiram desisted, though continuing to trail the groping man as he reeled through the sand, stumbling frequently.
”Lock the door, Hiram!” begged Heine Schultz. ”It's all over but closin' up.”
Hiram shook his head, and then Drummond wilted and sank in the sand.
Water was quickly provided, and the pulse of Jerkline Jo leaped as she saw that Hiram himself was taking the most prominent part in the whipped man's revival. It was fully five minutes before Drummond was conscious again; then Hiram helped to bear him to one of the trucks.
”Thank you, Hiram,” Jo said softly as he returned.
He looked up into her eyes, which were moist round the rims. He had fought and won for his girl of romance, and he knew now that it had been she who through all the years had been beckoning him to come.
With a damp cloth she tenderly touched his bruised face here and there as the wagon train moved on again.
”Don't think any the worse of me, Hiram,” she pleaded. ”Perhaps I'm a roughneck, after all, as Drummond intimated. But I can't faint and carry on at the sight of blood and the sound of battering fists as most women do. I like a fight--a fair fight--a good fight--a manly fight.
Life for me has been always a fight. I've learned not to shrink. Am I brutal--for a woman?”
”No,” said Hiram. ”I think I want you that way. n.o.body could look into your eyes, Jo, and think you weren't tender and compa.s.sionate.
I'd want my woman to be a fighter, I guess, when it was the time and place to fight.”
Jerkline Jo's face was radiant with color, but she said softly:
”And I want my man to be a fighter. It's in my blood, it seems.”
They said nothing more about it then, but each knew that love had spoken, and the unfriendly desert seemed a delectable land.
In camp that night Blink Keddie made a confession.
”Jo,” he said, twisting and squirming, ”me and Heine and Jim and Tom did ease that boulder into the road. We done it to get even for the empty water tank.”
”Why, Blink!” Jo cried, aghast.
”We made it up to do it, and not even let Wild Cat in on the deal, 'cause he seemed to think like you did. So we rampsed our teams and got way ahead o' you folks, then stopped 'em when they was outa you folks' sight around the curves, and ran back through the trees with bars. We had our rock all picked out, and it didn't take the four o'
us no time to ease her to the edge and let 'er plunk down in the road behind you. Then we run ahead through the woods and got on our wagons before you caught up. Now you know--what're you goin' to do about it?”
”Shall I have Wild Cat take you out, one at a time,” Jo asked mischievously, after a thoughtful pause.
Keddie shrugged. ”I ain't achin' for my portion o' that,” he confessed, ”but ol' Timberline will know he's been in a fight.”