arving
with cold, in a hut not fit for a pig.

"Ye kin do what ye likes, yerself--ye an' them as be fools like yerself;
but Jack Quinn bain't a-goin' to lend a hand a yer foolishness, Denny
Nolan," he concluded.

"Turn round an' git back to yer post wid ye," said the skipper.

"Who be ye, an' what be ye, to give that word to me?"

"Ye knows who I be. Turn round an' git!"

"To hell wid ye! I turns round for no man!"

"Then ye'd best drop yer nunney-bag, ye foxey-headed fool, for I bes
a-comin' at ye to larn ye who bes skipper here."

Quinn let his nunney-bag fall to the snow behind him--and in the same
instant of time the skipper's right fist landed on his nose, knocking
him backward over the bag, clear off his feet, and staining his red
whiskers to a deeper and brighter red. But the big fellow came up to his
feet again as nimbly as a cat. For a moment the two clinched and swayed
in each other's straining arms, like drunken men. The awed spectators
formed a line between the two and the edge of the cliff. Foxey Jack
broke the hold, leaped back and struck a furious, but ill-judged blow
which glanced off the other's jaw. Next instant he was down on the snow
again, with one eye shut, but up again as quickly.

Again they clinched and swayed, breast to breast, knee to knee. Both
were large men; but Foxey Jack was heavier, having come to his full
weight. This time it was the skipper who tried to break the hold,
realizing that his advantage lay in his fists, and Quinn's in the
greater weight of body and greater strength of back and leg. So the
skipper twisted and pulled; but Quinn held tight, and slowly but surely
forced the younger man towards the edge of the cliff. Suddenly the
skipper drew his head back and brought it forward and downward again,
with all the force of his neck and shoulders, fair upon the bridge of
his antagonist's nose. Quinn staggered and for a second his muscles
relaxed; and in that second the skipper wrenched away from his grasp and
knocked him senseless to the ground.

"Lay there, ye scum!" cried Black Dennis Nolan, breathing heavily, and
wiping blood from his chin with the back of his hand. "Lay there an' be
damned to ye, if ye t'ink ye kin say 'nay' when Dennis Nolan says 'aye.'
If it didn't be for the childern ye bes father of, an' yer poor, dacent
woman, I'd t'row ye over the cliff."

Foxey Jack Quinn was in no condition to reply to the skipper's address.
In fact, he did not hear a word of