s, and the brutal hammering a crowd of drunken men had given to Big
Ole, of the Wapsy.

The blood was trickling down Lime's face from a cut on his cheek, but
Steve's face was swollen and ghastly from the three blows which he had
received. Lime was saving himself for a supreme effort. The Nagle party,
encouraged by the sound of the blows which Steve struck, began to yell
and to show that they were ready to take a hand in the contest.

"Go it, Steve, we'll back yeh! Give it to 'im. We're with yeh! We'll
tend to the rest." They began to pull off their coats.

Rice also threw off his coat. "Never mind these cowards, Lime. Hold on!
Fair play!" he yelled, as he saw young Nagle about to strike Lime from
behind.

His cry startled Lime, and with a sudden leap he dealt Steve a terrible
blow full in the face, and as he went reeling back made another leaping
lunge and struck him to the ground--a motion that seemed impossible to
one of his bulk. But as he did so one of the crowd tripped him and sent
him rolling upon the prostrate Steve, whose friends leaped like a pack
of snarling wolves upon Lime's back. There came into the giant's heart a
terrible, blind, desperate resolution. With a hoarse, inarticulate cry
he gathered himself for one supreme effort and rose from the heap like a
bear shaking off a pack of dogs; and holding the stunned and nerveless
Steve in his great hands, with one swift, incredible effort literally
swept his opponent's body in the faces of the infuriated men rushing
down upon him.

"Come on, you red hellions!" he shouted, in a voice like a lion at bay.
The light streamed on his bared head, his hands were clinched, his chest
heaved in great gasps. There was no movement. The crowd waited with
their hands lowered; before such a man they could not stand for a
moment. They could not meet the blaze of his eyes. For a moment it
seemed as if no one breathed.

In the silence that followed, Bill, who had kept gut of sight up to this
moment, piped out in a high, weak falsetto, with a comically
questioning accent: "All quiet along the Potomac, boys?"

Lime unbraced, wiped his face and laughed. The others joined in
cautiously. "No, thank yez, none in mine," said Sheehan, in answer to
the challenge of Lime. "Whan Oi take to fightin' stame-ingins Oi'll lit
you knaw."

"Well, I should say so," said another. "Lime, you're the best man that
walks this State."

"Git out of the way, you white-livered hound, or I'll blow