THOSE sounds of combat which penetrated to an anxious kitchen were deep, rasping breathings, muttered exclamations and grunts, a shuffling of feet that was not unlike a musicless dance, a swish-swishing, as if the Italian janitress were mopping up the hall floor, and a series of soft poundings.

Yet the battle itself was not amounting to much. In fact, to speak strictly, no fight was going on at all.

In the first place, the hall was narrow, and gave small scope for a contest on broad, generous lines—even had One-Eye and Big Tom known how to wage such a bout; and both men knew little concerning the science of self-defense. What happened—without any further abusive language—was this: the longshoreman and the cowboy (while using due caution against coming too close to the flimsy railing of the stairs) each set about throwing his antagonist.

One-Eye sought to trip the longshoreman, but was unsuccessful, finding those two massive pillars, Big Tom's legs, as securely fixed to the rough flooring as if they were a part of the building itself. With his tonglike arms, Barber pressed down with all his might on the shoulders of the Westerner; and that moment in which One-Eye weakened the firmness of his own stand by thrusting out a boot to dislodge his enemy, the longshoreman had his chance; with a smothered voicing of his disgust (for One-Eye wished to make as little noise as possible in that semi-public place), down went the cowboy to his knees.

Several brunette heads were thrust out of doors above and below. Melodious Italian voices exclaimed and questioned and replied, mingling with cries in Yiddish and East Side English. All the while One-Eye clasped Big Tom about the legs, and held on grimly, and received, on either side of his weather-beaten countenance, a score of hard slaps.

These were skull-jarring, and not to be endured. So One-Eye thrust his head between Big Tom's spraddled legs; then, calling upon every atom of his strength, he forced his shoulders to follow his head, loosening the longshoreman's clutch; and with a grunt, down came the giant, falling upon the cowboy (which accounted for another grunt), and pinning him to the dusty floor.

Sprawled, as it were, head and tail, a contest for upper place now began. One-Eye writhed like a hairy animal (this the swish-swishing). Being both slender and agile, he managed to wriggle out from beneath Big Tom, who instantly turned about and caught him, and once more laid upon him the whole of his great, steel-constructed bulk.

The pair strained and rolled. After several changes of position, in which neither man was at all damaged except in his appearance, Barber came to the top and stayed there, like the largest potato in a basket. Then straddling the lighter man, who was blowing hoarsely, Big Tom cuffed him leisurely.

As Father Pat listened to all this, leaned against the door with his ear cocked, he hoped with all his heart for the triumph of right over might. "And I can but stand by t' give consolation and bear witness!" he mourned, though how he was bearing witness was not apparent.

"Oh, stop them! Stop them!" pleaded Cis, a hand over each ear, for her courage was lessening. "Oh, I'm afraid he's hurting One-Eye awful! Oh, Barber'll kill him, Father! And what good'll that do us?"

Thus implored, the priest took a swift survey of the hall. But, "Oh, don't go!" Cis begged. "And shut it! Shut it!"

"Who's on top?" Johnnie wanted to know.

"They're wrastlin'," announced the Father. "So don't be alarmed. And Mr. Gamboni's out there, and he'll not see bloodshed!"

"I don't worry!" boasted Johnnie. "Cis, what makes y' talk the way y' do? Barber, he can't lick a cowboy!"

"Y' pesky critter!"—this from the hall, in unmistakable westernese.

"Y' hear?" joyously demanded Johnnie, recognizing One-Eye's voice. "Y' hear, Father Pat? Oh, I don't have t' look! I know how it's goin'! I can see it! One-Eye's got him down! He's hammerin' him good!—Oh, go for him, One-Eye! Go for him! Go for him!"

Slap! slap! slap!

To judge from these sounds, the cowboy was carrying out Johnnie's wish. So with that rapt look, and that moving of the nostrils which betokened excited day-dreaming, Johnnie gladdened himself with a soul-satisfying picture of the contest: Big Tom prone on his face, spent, helpless, cowering, pleading, bleeding, while the dashing One-Eye rained blow after blow upon him—bing! bing! bing! ("Makin' a meal outen him," as the man from the West would say). Next, he saw the longshoreman stretched upon a bed of pain, admitting all of his shortcomings to Father Pat in weak whispers.

It was all so real to Johnnie that he fell to pitying Big Tom!

He pitied him more as the scene changed swiftly to that of a funeral (Barber's, of course), at which he—Johnnie—in a new suit, with Cis beside him, made one carriageful in an extended line of carriages, all rolling circumspectly along. That One-Eye's plight, under such circumstances, might be trying, to say the least, Johnnie forgot to consider, wholly passing over the small matter of an inquiry on the part of the police authorities! What he did anticipate, however, was a flat that, in the future, would be a peaceful, happy, quiet place—the home of just Grandpa, Cis, and himself.

"Oh, Father Pat, by now One-Eye's dead!" wailed Cis. "Oh, why didn't some one stop them! Oh! Oh, dear!"

This interruption to Johnnie's visioning was followed by a loud laugh, and the turning of the hall doorknob. Johnnie raised himself on an elbow, lifting a hopeful face. "One-Eye!" he cried. "Hooray! Hooray!"

But it was Barber who strode into the room.

He was grinning from one huge, outstanding ear to the other. "Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!" he chortled triumphantly. "Guess I'll have t' go t' the Hospital! Look how I'm all beat up! Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!"

As he stood laughing, his bristling face split across by the brown line that was his teeth, his bulging eyes shut with merriment, his wide, fat nose giving its sidewise jerk with each guffaw, Johnnie, staring up at him, thought of the terrible African magician: of the murderous, cruel Magua: of wicked Tom Watkins and all the man-eating savages whom the valiant Crusoe fought.

Here was a man worse than them all! Also—there was no doubt of it—here was the victor!

But what about One-Eye?

"One-Eye!" wailed Johnnie, in terror. For suddenly his imagination furnished him with a new picture, this time of the Westerner. And, oh, it was a sadly different picture from that other! It showed the cowboy, torn, broken, beaten, stretched dead in his own lifeblood.

"Oh, Dio mio!—Oy! oy! oy! oy! oy!—He oughta be pinched!"

The opening door let in this much of the heated opinion of a portion of the building. The opening door also admitted the cowboy. Slowly, soberly, almost crawling, he came.

He was mournfully changed. That single eye was puffing redly. His straw-colored hair was almost dark with sweat, and inclined to lie down. From either shoulder hung woefully a half of his vest, which had ripped straight down its back! And, yes, there was blood in evidence!—on the knuckles of both hands! This bright decoration was from a nose which dripped scarlet spots upon the front sections of the vest.

"Oh, One-Eye!" moaned Cis, yet not without relief. At least he was alive—could stand—could walk!

"Goodness!" Johnnie's exclamation had in it a note of pure chagrin. His cowboy had not won! "What did he do t' y'?" the boy wanted to know, almost blamefully.

"Do?" repeated the cowboy, wrathfully. "Say! He went and busted my fountain pen!" He began feeling his way toward the stove. When he got as far as the mattress, he first hunted his handkerchief and applied it to the stopping of that nasal stream, then, grunting painfully, he lay down.

"Git all y' wanted?" inquired the longshoreman.

"My land!" returned the Westerner. "I got a hay-wagonful!"

"Man dear!" gasped Father Pat, making for the wash basin.

Johnnie felt suddenly heartsick. Would not the tale of One-Eye's defeat scatter in the neighborhood? and if it did, would not his own proud position be threatened along with the cowboy's? Whipped by Tom Barber! That was all right for a kid! But for a man who wore hair on his breeches——!

The boy sank back in the morris chair. "I'd sooner Big Tom'd whip me again!" he declared under his breath.

Barber was mocking One-Eye. "Yes, man dear!" he said. "Heaven didn't make y'r arm as strong as y' wanted it, eh?" He was very cocky, and pushed out either cheek importantly with his tongue.

Father Pat was now washing a rapidly closing eye on a sadly battered countenance. "Shure, Heaven'll deal with ye in its own good time!" he promised, nodding a portentous head.

Big Tom snorted. "He's been waitin' and waitin'," he observed; "—ever since he first met me. That's why he give me such a hidin'!"

One-Eye, the stains of carnage wiped from lip and chin, peered up through a tiny slit between those puffing lids. "Big as a barn," he asserted, but without temper. "Big as a Poland Chinee pig! All beef! All fat!" And to Johnnie, sunk in his quilt, "Don't y' beller, sonny, I ain't got no grunt comin'. I done my best. But he's stronger'n me, that's all they is to it, and heftier. But it all goes to show that if I ain't no match for him, he's lower'n a sheep-eatin' greaser t' go hit a kid—'r a girl!" Before that eye slit closed, he crawled to where his hat, coat and gauntlets were, took them up, and fell to warping them into shape again. "But y'r time'll come, sonny!" he vowed. "Y'r time'll come! Jes' y' wait!"

"Well, I didn't keep you waitin'," bragged Barber, with another loud laugh. "And if there's anybody else—" His look sought the priest. "Why, say! You're a fighter, ain't y', Father Pat? Wasn't y' in the trenches? I wonder y' don't lick me y'reself. Ho! ha! ha! ha! ha!"

At that, the red anger spread itself among the stubble of the same hue on the Father's still unshaved jaws. "No," he answered grimly, speaking with the thicker brogue that always came into his English along with his wrath. "No, Oi can't give ye the dustin' that's comin' t' ye, Barber."

"It'll take a man t' lick me," declared the longshoreman proudly. He thumped his chest. "Yes, sir, a reg'lar-sized man! Now, Furman, he says that, barrin' the World Champion, 'r some guy like that, there ain't a man standin' on two feet in this whole country that can down me!" He thrust out his lower lip.

"Ha-a-a-a!" breathed the priest, scornful. He helped guide One-Eye to the kitchen chair. "Well, the man Oi once was, Oi presinted him t' me counthry. So here's what's left av me. But, Barber, punishment's comin' t' ye! Mar-rk me wor-r-rd!"

Suddenly Big Tom gave a shout. "Say!" he cried. "Maybe here's a gent that'd like t' try his hand at lickin' me!" For the hall door had opened again, and another visitor was entering—breathlessly, anxiously, swiftly. "What'd d' y' say, Mister Eye-Glassy, White-Spatty, Pinky-Face?"

"Yes, sir! I'll try to do just that! In fact, that's why I've come. Can't have you strike a girl, you know, Mr. Barber, or a little chap like Johnnie; not without trying to punish you. So if you'll oblige me——"

Thus, with one wave of a gloved hand, was Big Tom once more bidden to fight, this time by Mr. Perkins.

"Oblige?" repeated the longshoreman, delighted. "Dear Mister Perkins, y're one person that I'm jus' achin' t' spank!" Then once more showing his pipe-stained teeth in a grin, "Oh, but I hate awful t' muss y' up! I hate t' spoil y', Perksie! Y' look so nice and neat and sweet! Almost like a stick o' candy! And, nobody'll want t' look at y' after I git done with y'!"

Mr. Perkins was not ruffled by the longshoreman's attempt at humor. "Don't waste your breath on compliments, Mr. Barber," he advised; "you may need it." He laid a new, black bowler hat on the kitchen table, and proceeded to draw off his gloves.

"God grant he will!" cried Father Pat, fervently. "For besides what he's done to these children, look how he's treated our poor friend from Kansas!" And the priest stepped from between the scoutmaster and One-Eye.

The Westerner waved protesting hands. "Wy-o-ming!" he corrected, with more than a shade of irritation. "Not Kansas! Wy-o-ming!" He held up a countenance that was now wholly—if temporarily—blind.

"Wyoming," repeated Father Pat, hastily. "And here's Mr. Perkins, One-Eye, and he's wishin' t' shake yer hand."

At that, out shot the cowboy's right. It was still bloody over the knuckles, the Father having confined his washing to One-Eye's face. "Put 'er there!" invited the sightless one.

"How are you!" greeted Mr. Perkins, heartily; yet his tone carried with it just the right amount of sympathy.

"Jes' so-so," answered One-Eye. "Look how he slapped me in the eye!"

"Cis, my sweetheart, are you all right?" inquired Mr. Perkins.

She ran to him, and he took her hands. "Oh, yes!" she cried happily. "But, oh, I'm so glad you've come!"

As Father Pat said afterward, it was the sweetheart that did it. As those young hands met, of a sudden Barber's good humor went. "That'll do!" he ordered. "Jus' y' shut up on them pretty names!"

"Ah! You don't believe in affection, do you?" rejoined Mr. Perkins. His countenance wore an exasperating smile.

"I don't b'lieve in puppy love!" answered Big Tom. "I don't b'lieve in the soft, calf stuff! And I'd jus' like t' know how it happens that you two guys 're here at this time in the mornin'! How does it come? Some one must 've fetched y'! And I'm goin' t' know, 'r else I'm goin' t' break ev'ry last bone in y'r dude body!"

"Oh, my goodness!" quavered Johnnie. He turned and twisted in the big chair. And he wished with all his might that he was having either a very bad think, or a torturing nightmare. Seeing this second friend come, he had felt an awful sinking of the heart. If the Westerner, rough and ready and leathery as he was, could not conquer Big Tom, what would the young scoutmaster be able to do?—and he so slender and light when compared to the giant longshoreman! And now the latter was working himself into a rage! Johnnie, head thrust from the folds of the quilt, told himself that the whole world was coming to an end.

But Mr. Perkins did not seem to be disturbed by Barber's threats. "Fancy that!" he said calmly. "Every bone! But where will you take it, Mr. Barber?"

"Take what?" asked the longshoreman.

"Your whipping," answered Mr. Perkins; "—the good, sound, punching that I'm going to give you." He began to get out of his coat.

A shout of laughter—from Big Tom, who next addressed the ceiling. "Oh, listen t' this cute baby boy!" he cried. "He thinks he can lick me! Me!—one o' the strongest men on the whole water front! One-Eye, tell him how far you got! Oh, save his life, One-Eye! Save his life!"

"Wisht I had a chunk o' fresh beefsteak fer this lamp!" declared the cowboy, too miserable to care about what was going forward.

"Well," continued Mr. Perkins, "if you're so certain on the score of what you're going to do to me, Mr. Barber, then, of course, you'll be willing to make a bargain with me. Yes?"

Barber was in fine spirits. "Go ahead! Course I'll bargain! Anything y' like! Git it out o' y'r system!" He sucked his teeth noisily.

"If I come out winner," began the scoutmaster, very deliberately, "then I'm to have Narcissa for my wife—and you'll sign your consent. And we shall go at once—this morning—and be married."

"So that's y'r bargain, is it?" said Big Tom. "Well, I'll say this: if y' can lick me, which y' can't, then I'll make y' a present o' Cis——"

"Don't give away what isn't yours!" Cis interrupted sharply. "And please understand, bargain or no bargain, that I'm leaving here this morning. If I can't marry Mr. Perkins without your consent, then I'll just wait till I can."

The longshoreman ignored her. "I stick by what I've jus' said, Perksie," he went on, impudently. "BUT—if I lick you, and I'm goin' t', then out y' trot, and down, and y' lose her! Y' understand?"

"I understand that I lose her until she is old enough to do as she chooses," amended Mr. Perkins.

"After t'day, y' don't see her again," insisted Big Tom, "till she's growed up."

"I'll see him every day!" cried Cis. "Every day!—Don't agree to that, Algy! The marriage part, yes, because we can't help ourselves. But he's not going to part us! I'm leaving, but wherever I am, I'm going to see you!"

The longshoreman turned toward her now, and his look was full of hate. "I guess y'll do jus' about what I tell y' to," he said significantly. "Algy's goin' t' be too sick t' look after y'."

Johnnie emitted a woeful little peep. "Oo-oo! Mister Perkins!" he pleaded. "Couldn't y' put off fightin' till—till some other time?"

Johnnie's anxious demand amused Big Tom. It amused Cis, too, but for a wholly different reason. As they laughed together, each challenged the other with angry eyes.

Johnnie, feeling fainter every moment, marveled as he stared at Cis. There was no question as to her perfect confidence regarding the outcome of the fight. And he marveled even more when he looked at Mr. Perkins. The latter was cheerful—even gay! He forgot nothing. First, he shook hands with Father Pat; next with One-Eye. "Maybe you'd like to have me put you into a taxicab before this row starts," he said to the cowboy.

"Nope," was the answer. "I'm goin' t' stay fer the concert."

Mr. Perkins went to Cis, took her fingers in his, bent gallantly, and kissed them. "Wish me good luck!" he bade her.

"It won't be luck," she answered.

"Ain't his hands nice and clean!" mocked Barber. "Ain't his nails shiny!" There was an ugly glitter in the bulging eyes once more. A moment later, as he found himself close to Mr. Perkins (for the latter had come to join him), he acted upon a sudden temptation. Reaching out, with an impudent grin he tweaked the younger man lightly by the nose.

Biff!

The blow was so sudden, so powerful and straight to its mark (which was a jaw), that Big Tom's breath went—as his toes tipped up, and he began to reel backward, fanning the air with both arms.

"Ha-a-a-a!" cried the priest. "No wonder ye stand t' yer feet, Johnnie lad! Shure, that puts the faith into ye, don't it!"

Barber was against a wall, choking, spluttering. "You—you—you—!" he panted. "The idear o' hittin' a man without warnin'!"

"I know," agreed Mr. Perkins, good-naturedly. "Also, the idea of pulling a man's nose without warning."

Now Big Tom was in the proper frame of mind for the fight. "You go on downstairs!" he ordered. "And let me tell y' this: When I git done with y', they'll pick y' up on a quilt! Git that?—on a quilt!"

Mr. Perkins opened the hall door. "You lead the way downstairs," he said. "I trust you, Mr. Barber, but somehow I don't trust your feet."

Then the two went out, the longshoreman trembling with rage.