O’Brien swallowed hard. Then slowly raised his hand and pointed toward the door.
“Git OUT! Git, or I’ll thrash ye! Ye don’t know how t’ take care o’ a nephy!” he roared.
The fisherman did not move. Instead his fist drew back for a blow. But the foreman was too quick for him. Throwing self-control to the wind, the Irishman reached out and seized the big man around the waist. Then with a superhuman effort he lifted him from the floor and hurled him back through the doorway, following after him like a panther.
Now it happened that just at this point one of the fisherman’s followers, who had come ashore with him, was entering the cottage. The captain, as he plunged headlong through the open, collided with this man and both fell into a heap at the very doorstep. But they were on their feet in an instant and O’Brien had hardly stepped clear of the room before his bearded adversary was on guard.
O’Brien’s eyes narrowed in anger. He never paused or wavered a moment but plunged forward like an enraged bull. It was a vicious fight while it lasted. Strength and brawn against strength and brawn. Two masters fighting in almost fatal earnestness, one to avenge an insult, the other to prove his mastery. The grunts that accompanied each trip hammer blow told the bitterness of the encounter.
There were no preliminaries. O’Brien rushed the bearded man and as he closed in his arm shot up from his hip like a shaft of darting lightning. Behind it was every ounce of strength in his great powerful body. The smack of flesh against flesh sounded and the fisherman staggered. An instant he swayed, then he lurched forward into a clinch before the Irishman could deliver a second blow. Desperately he clung on, swaying to the right and left with the foreman, who tried his hardest to shake him off.
Men came rushing from the camp. They formed a circle about the two. They were big burly men and every one of them loved a fight. Jack and Ray and the engineer and even mild-tempered old Eli Whittaker were among them, and as they watched the swaying figures before them their natural love of combat cropped forth and they cheered lustily with the rest, cheered lustily at each clever move, no matter which one made it.
The fisherman held on to the clinch until O’Brien was almost beside himself with rage. He held on for his life until his head cleared from the stinging hammer-like blow he had received on the jaw. Then suddenly with a catlike movement he broke, dropping low and slipping away from two terrific blows aimed at his head.
This agility called forth applause from the men in the circle, which developed into a burst of cheers when the black-bearded one stepped back again and drove right, left and right against O’Brien’s stomach and jumped away before the Irishman could get in anything better than a glancing punch on the head in return. Once again he waded in. But this time he was not so fortunate. O’Brien’s great ham-like fist smashed squarely against his nose, and before he could recover himself a left hook shot up and snapped his head back between his shoulders!
Once more he clinched and held, while O’Brien squirmed and wriggled to free himself for a final and finishing blow.