TAD WHIPS A MOUNTAIN BOY
"Shame! Shame on you!" cried Tad Butler indignantly.
The lad leaped from his pony which he quickly tethered to the
hitching bar in front of the store.
This done he ran to his fallen companion, who still lay where the
lariat had thrown him. He was half stunned and covered with
dust. After jerking him from his pony, however, the cowboys, though
continuing their shouts of glee, had made no further effort to
molest Philip.
Tad quickly released him.
"I 've had a lot to do with cowboys, but you're the first I ever
knew who would do a thing like that. The cowboys I know are
gentlemen."
"Then, d'ye mean to say that we ain't, ye miserable cayuse?"
demanded one of the number, rising menacingly.
"The fellow who roped that boy is a loafer!" answered Tad bravely,
taking a couple of paces forward and facing the crowd. "You wouldn't
dare do that to a man, especially if he had a gun as you have. Why
didn't you try it on Luke Lame when he was over here?"
"Oh, go back to yer mammy," jeered one.
"I want to know who threw that rope? If he isn't too big a coward,
he'll tell me. I guess Mr. Simms will settle with him."
"It's up to you, Bob, I guess," nodded one of them, addressing the
angry-faced mountain boy who was one of their number.
The latter rose with what was intended to appear as offended
dignity.
"Ye mean me?" he demanded, glaring.
"Yes, if you are the one who did it," answered Tad, looking him
squarely in the eyes.
"Then your going to git the alfiredest lickin' you ever had in your
life," announced the mountain boy.
Tad held the other with a gaze so steady and unflinching as to cause
the mountain boy to pause hesitatingly.
"Phil, jump on your pony and get out of here," directed the lad in a
low tone.
"He stays where he is," commanded one of the cowboys.
"Do as I tell you," retorted Tad sharply. "Be quick about it, too."
A cowboy aimed a gun at Phil Simms.
"Try it, if ye want ter git touched up," he warned. "Bob, sail into
the fresh kid," he added, nodding his head toward Tad Butler.
"I'm not looking for a fight--I don't want to fight, but if that
loafer comes near me I'll have to do the best I can," answered Tad
bravely. "I don't expect to get fair play. I'll----"
"You'll git fair play and you'll git more besides," called the
previous speaker. "Go to him, Bob."
Bob lowered his head, sticking out his chin and assuming a
belligerent attitude with eyes fixed on the slender figure of his
opponent.
Tad was observing the mountain boy keenly, measuring him mentally,
while young Simms, pale-faced and frightened, was leaning against
his pony, which he had caught and was preparing to mount when he was
stopped by the gun of the cowboy.
"See, you've got him rattled already, Bob," shouted a cowman
triumphantly. "He'll be running in a minute."
"Come away, Tad," begged Philip.
"Keep quiet. Don't speak to me," answered the lad, without turning
his head toward his companion. Tad Butler's whole being was centered
on the work that he knew was ahead of him.
He was angry. He felt that he had never been more so in his life,
but not a trace of his emotion showed in his face or actions. If he
ever had need of coolness, it was at this very moment. He did not
know whether he would be able to master the raw-boned mountaineer or
not.
The lad's training in athletics had been thorough, and his title of
champion wrestler of the high school in Chillicothe had been earned
by hard work and persistent effort to make himself physically fit.
"He's all of twenty-five pounds heavier than I am," decided the
boy. "I've got to try some tricks that he doesn't know about, if I
hope to make any kind of showing."
Bob was now approaching him with an ugly grin on his face. Tad's
arms hung easily by his side.
"Come on, what are you waiting for?" Tad smiled.
With a bellow of rage, Bob rushed him.
Tad laughed, and stepping quickly to one side, thrust a foot between
the bully's legs as he passed. Bob landed flat on his face in the
dust of the street.
The cowboys set up a roar of delight. It was sport, no matter who
got the worst of it.
"Give them room," shouted some one, as the men closed quickly about
the combatants. "Let the kids fight it out."
These tactics were so new to Bob, that he did not know just what had
happened to him. And when he had scrambled to his feet, he met the
laughing face of Tad Butler, which enraged him past all
control. This was exactly what Tad wanted.
Bob with a bellow again charged him. Tad made a pass and missed, but
covered his failure by neatly ducking under the upraised arm of the
cowboy, whose surprised look when he found that he had been punching
the empty air brought forth yells of delight from his companions.
Tad had cast away his hat, that it might not interfere with his
movements. No sooner had he done so than his opponent renewed his
attack. But Tad skillfully parried the heavy blows, delivered
awkwardly and without any great amount of skill. The great danger
was that his adversary with his superior strength might beat down
the lad's defense and land a blow that would put a sudden end to the
fray.
Tad was watching for an opening that would enable him to put in
practice a plan that had formed in his brain.
"Look out for the cayuse, Bob. He ain't so big a tenderfoot as he
looks," warned a cowboy. But Bob had already discovered this
fact. Though his fists were beating a tattoo in the air he seemed
unable to land a blow on the body of his elusive adversary, and this
only served to anger him the more.
"Ki-yi!" yelled the cowboys as a short arm blow, delivered through
the mountaineer's windmill movements, reached his jaw and sent him
sprawling.
Tad had not been able to put the force into it that he wanted to,
else the battle might have ended then and there.
Bob came back. This time he uttered no taunts. The blow hurt
him. His head felt dizzy and his fists did not work with the same
speed that they had done before.
All at once Tad's right hand shot out, his fist open instead of
being closed. It closed over the left wrist of the cowboy with an
audible slap.
Tad's left hand joined his right in closing over his adversary's
wrist. He whirled sharply, bringing Bob's left arm over his
adversary's shoulder. Then something happened that made the cowmen
gasp with astonishment. The slender lad lifted the big mountain boy
clear of the ground, hurled him over his head, and still clinging to
the wrist, brought him down with a smashing jolt, flat on his back
in the middle of the village street. Phil Simms narrowly escaped
being struck by the heels of the mountain boy's boots as they
described a half circle in the air.
Bob lay perfectly still. And for a moment the cowboys stood
speechless with amazement.
"Whoopee!" yelled one. "Who-o-o-p-e-e!" chorused the others, dancing
about Tad Butler and his fallen victim in wild delight.
"I'm sorry I had to do it," muttered the boy.
They helped Bob to his feet, pounded him on the back, making jeering
remarks about his being whipped by a kid, until his courage
gradually was urged back as his strength returned.
Suddenly Bob turned on his assailant, and throwing both arms about
him, bore him to earth. The move was so unexpected that the lad had
no opportunity to side step out of the way. The weight of the
mountaineer was so great that Tad found himself unable to squirm
from under.
Bob, with a growl of rage, raised his fist, bringing it down with
the same movement that he would wield a meat axe.
Tad never flinched as he saw it coming. His eyes were fixed upon the
descending fist, his every nerve centered on the task of watching
it.
Just at the instant when fist and face seemed to be meeting, the lad
by a mighty effort, jerked his head ever so little to the
right.
"Oh!" yelled Bob.
Something snapped.
The pressure released from his body, ever so little, Tad by a
supreme muscular effort, threw his opponent slightly to one side,
and quickly wormed himself from under. He was on his feet in an
instant.
The cowboys did not know what had happened, but they knew that the
boy from the Simms ranch had done something to their companion that
for the instant had taken all of the fight out of him.
Tad had been only partly responsible for Bob's present condition,
however. By jerking his head to one side he had caused the mountain
boy's fist to strike the hard roadbed instead of Tad's head.
Bob struggled to his feet, holding the right wrist with the left
hand and moaning with pain. The right hung limp. Tad knew what had
happened.
"He's broken his wrist. I'm glad I didn't have to do it for him,"
said the lad.
At first glowering glances were cast in Tad's direction. They were
of half a mind to punish him in their own way.
"You said it was to be a fair fight," spoke up the lad. "Has it
been?"
There was a momentary silence.
"The kid's right," exclaimed a cowman. "He cleaned up Bob fair and
square. I reckon you kin go, now."
"Thank you."
"Hold on a minute. Not so fast, young fellow. I'm kinder curious
like to know how ye put Bob over yer head like that!" asked another.
"It was a simple little Japanese wrestling trick," laughed the boy.
"Kin ye do that to me?"
"I don't know."
"Well, yer going ter try and right here and now."
"All right, come over here on the grass where the ground isn't so
hard. If I succeed in doing it, though, you must agree not to get
mad. I can't fight you, you know. You are too big for me."
The cowman grinned significantly, and strode over to the place
indicated by Tad Butler.
"Now what d'ye want me ter do?" he demanded, leering. "Yer see I'm
willing?"
"Strike at me, if you wish. I don't care how you go about it,"
replied Tad.
"Here goes!"
The cowman launched a terrific blow with his right. Tad sprang back
laughing.
"If that had ever hit me, you never would have known how the other
trick is worked," he said, while the cowboys laughed uproariously at
the fellow's surprise when he found that his fist had not landed.
"Guess the kid ain't no slouch, eh, Jim?" jeered one.
Jim let go another, then a third one. The third blow proved his
undoing. The next instant Jim's boots were describing a half circle
in the air over Tad Butler's head. His revolvers slipping from their
holsters in transit, dropped to the ground and Jim landed flat on
his back with a mighty grunt.
He was up with a roar, his right hand dropping instinctively to his
empty holster.
"Wh-o-o-o-e!" warned the fellow's companions. "No fair, Jim. No
fair. He said as he'd do it, and he did. Kid, you'd clean out the
whole outfit, give you time, I reckon."
Jim pulled himself together, restored his weapons to their places,
and walked over to Tad, extending his hand.
"That was a dizzy wallop ye give me, pardner," he said, with a
sheepish grin. "If ye'll show me how it's did, I'll call it square."
Tad laughingly did so.
"I guess I couldn't get even with them any easier than by showing
them the trick," he grinned, mounting his pony, and accompanied by
Philip rode away. "They'll try that trick till the whole bunch of
them get into a battle royal."
They did, as Tad learned next day.