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“You infernal rascal!” cried the other. “I’ll show you the way out of that plantation with the toe of my boot. Do you dare to stand there on my land and talk back at me?” He advanced with a menacing face and his dog-whip half raised. “Well, are you going?” he cried, as he swung it into the air.

Tom Spring jumped back to avoid the threatened blow.

“Go slow, mister,” said he. “It’s only fair that you should know where you are. I’m Spring, the prize-fighter. Maybe you have heard my name.”

“I thought you were a rascal of that breed,” said the man. “I’ve had the handling of one or two of you gentry before, and I never found one that could stand up to me for five minutes. Maybe you would like to try?”

“If you hit me with that dog-whip, mister—-“

“There, then!” He gave the young man a vicious cut across the shoulder. “Will that help you to fight?”

“I came here to fight” said Tom Spring, licking his dry lips. “You can drop that whip, mister, for I will fight. I’m a trained man and ready. But you would have it. Don’t blame me.”

The man was stripping the blue coat from his broad shoulders. There was a sprigged satin vest beneath it, and they were hung together on an alder branch.

“Trained are you?” he muttered. “By the Lord, I’ll train you before I am through!”

Any fears that Tom Spring may have had lest he should be taking some unfair advantage were set at rest by the man’s assured manner and by the splendid physique, which became more apparent as he discarded a black satin tie, with a great ruby glowing in its centre, and threw aside the white collar which cramped his thick muscular neck. He then, very deliberately, undid a pair of gold sleeve-links, and, rolling up his shirt-sleeves, disclosed two hairy and muscular arms, which would have served as a model for a sculptor.

“Come nearer the stile,” said he, when he had finished. “There is more room.”

The prize-fighter had kept pace with the preparations of his formidable antagonist. His own hat, coat, and vest hung suspended upon a bush. He advanced now into the open space which the other had indicated.

“Ruffianing or fighting?” asked the amateur, coolly.

“Fighting.”

“Very good,” said the other. “Put up your hands, Spring. Try it out.”

They were standing facing one another in a grassy ring intersected by the path at the outlet of the wood. The insolent and overbearing look had passed away from the amateur’s face, but a grim half-smile was on his lips and his eyes shone fiercely from under his tufted brows. From the way in which he stood it was very clear that he was a past-master at the game. Tom Spring, as he paced lightly to right and left, looking for an opening, became suddenly aware that neither with Stringer nor with the redoubtable Painter himself had he ever faced a more business-like opponent. The amateur’s left was well forward, his guard low, his body leaning back from the haunches, and his head well out of danger. Spring tried a light lead at the mark, and another at the face, but in an instant his adversary was on to him with a shower of sledge-hammer blows which it took him all his time to avoid. He sprang back, but there was no getting away from that whirlwind of muscle and bone. A heavy blow beat down his guard, a second landed on his shoulder, and over went the prize-fighter with the other on the top of him. Both sprang to their feet, glared at each other, and fell into position once more.

There could be no doubt that the amateur was not only heavier, but also the harder and stronger man. Twice again he rushed Spring down, once by the weight of his blows, and once by closing and hurling him on to his back. Such falls might have shaken the fight out of a less game man, but to Tom Spring they were but incidents in his daily trade. Though bruised and winded he was always up again in an instant. Blood was trickling from his mouth, but his steadfast blue eyes told of the unshaken spirit within.