Crittenden

"Suppose I don't?"

Crittenden smiled again and answered nothing, and Reynolds mistook his

silence for timidity. At right wheel, a little later, Crittenden

squeezed the bully's leg, and Reynolds cursed him. He might have passed

that with a last warning, but, as they wheeled again, he saw Reynolds

kick Sanders so violently that the boy's eyes filled with tears. He went

straight for the soldier as soon as the drill was over.

"Put up your guard."

"Aw, go to----"

The word was checked at his lips by Crittenden's fist. In a rage,

Reynolds threw his hand behind him, as though he would pull his

revolver, but his wrist was caught by sinewy fingers from behind. It was

Blackford, smiling into his purple face.

"Hold on!" he said, "save that for a Spaniard."

At once, as a matter of course, the men led the way behind the tents,

and made a ring--Blackford, without a word, acting as Crittenden's

second. Reynolds was the champion bruiser of the regiment and a boxer of

no mean skill, and Blackford looked anxious.

"Worry him, and he'll lose his head. Don't try to do him up too

quickly."

Reynolds was coarse, disdainful, and triumphant, but he did not look

quite so confident when Crittenden stripped and showed a white body,

closely jointed at shoulder and elbow and at knee and thigh, and

closely knit with steel-like tendons. The long muscles of his back

slipped like eels under his white skin. Blackford looked relieved.

"Do you know the game?"

"A little."

"Worry him and wait till he loses his head--remember, now."

"All right," said Crittenden, cheerfully, and turned and faced Reynolds,

smiling.

"Gawd," said Abe Long. "He's one o' the fellows that laugh when they're

fightin'. They're worse than the cryin' sort--a sight worse."

The prophecy in the soldier's tone soon came true. The smile never left

Crittenden's face, even when it was so bruised up that smiling was

difficult; but the onlookers knew that the spirit of the smile was still

there. Blackford himself was smiling now. Crittenden struck but for one

place at first--Reynolds's nose, which was naturally large and red,

because he could reach it every time he led out. The nose swelled and

still reddened, and Reynolds's small black eyes narrowed and flamed with

a wicked light. He fought with his skill at first, but those maddening

taps on his nose made him lose his head altogether in the sixth round,

and he senselessly rushed at Crittenden with lowered head, like a sheep.

Crittenden took him sidewise on his jaw as he came, and stepped aside.

Reynolds pitched to the ground heavily, and Crittenden bent over him.