Can it! Can it!" as the second tramp raised
his stick to strike the now prostrate camper.
As he spoke Billy Byrne broke into a run, and as the stick
fell he reached the man's side and swung a blow to the
tramp's jaw that sent the fellow spinning backward to the
river's brim, where he tottered drunkenly for a moment and
then plunged backward into the shallow water.
Then Billy seized the other attacker by the shoulder and
dragged him to his feet.
"Do you want some, too, you big stiff?" he inquired.
The man spluttered and tried to break away, striking at
Billy as he did so; but a sudden punch, such a punch as Billy
Byrne had once handed the surprised Harlem Hurricane, removed
from the mind of the tramp the last vestige of any
thought he might have harbored to do the newcomer bodily
injury, and with it removed all else from the man's mind,
temporarily.
As the fellow slumped, unconscious, to the ground, the
camper rose to his feet.
"Some wallop you have concealed in your sleeve, my
friend," he said; "place it there!" and he extended a slender,
shapely hand.
Billy took it and shook it.
"It don't get under the ribs like those verses of yours,
though, bo," he returned.
"It seems to have insinuated itself beneath this guy's thick
skull," replied the poetical one, "and it's a cinch my verses,
nor any other would ever get there.
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