-- and we hadda lay some Frenchies before we could get in,--said Hansen.
--o we saw only the last three rounds,--continued the Old Man.--ut, boy, they was worth the money--he had you outclassed every way except guts--you was licked to a frazzle, but he couldn't make you realize it--and I laid a bet or two--
And blow me, if the Old Man didn't stuff a wad of bills in my sore hand.
--alfa what I won,--he beamed.--nd furthermore, the Sea-Girl ain't sailin'ttill you--e plumb able and fit.----ut what about Mike?--My head was swimming by this time.
-- bloomin'tbow-legged angel,--said the Old Man, pinching Mike-- ear lovingly.--he both of you kin have my upper teeth! I owe you a lot, Steve. You--e done a lot for me, but I never felt so in debt to you as I do now. When I see that big French ham, the one man in the world I would of give my right arm to see licked--
--ey!--I suddenly seen the light, and I went weak and limp.--ou mean that was--
--ou whipped Tiger Valois, heavyweight champion of the French fleet, Steve,--said Tom.--ou ought to have known how he wears dude clothes and struts amongst the swells when on shore leave. He wouldn't tell you who he was for fear you wouldn't fight him; and I was afraid I-- discourage you if I told you at first and later you wouldn't give me a chance.----might as well tell you,--I said to the Old Man,--hat I didn't know this bird was the fellow that beat you up in Manila. I fought him because he kicked Mike.----low the reason!--said the Old Man, raring back and beaming like a jubilant crocodile.--ou licked him--that-- enough. Now we--l have a bottle opened and drink to Yankee ships and Yankee sailors--especially Steve Costigan.----efore you do,--I said,--rink to the boy who stands for everything them aforesaid ships and sailors stands for--Mike of Dublin, an honest gentleman and born mascot of all fightin'tmen!--
Black Harps in the Hills
Let Saxons sing of Saxon kings,
Red faced swine with a greasy beard--Through my songs the Gaelic broadsword sings,
The pibrock skirls and the sporran swings,
For mine is the blood of the Irish kings
That Saxon monarchs feared.
The heather bends to a marching tread,
The echoes shake to a marching tune--For the Gael has supped on bitter bread,
And follows the ghosts of the mighty dead,
And the blue blades gleam and the pikes burn red
In the rising of the moon.
Norseman reaver or red haired Dane,
Norman baron or English lord--Each of them reeled to a reddened rain,
Drunken with fury and blind with pain,
Till the black fire spilled from the Gaelic brain
And the steel from the broken sword.
But never the chiefs in death lay still,
Never the clans lay scattered and few--But a new face rose and a new voice roared,
And a new hand gripped the broken sword,
And the fleeing clans were a charging horde,
And the old hate burned anew!
Brian Boruma, Shane O--eill,
Art McMurrough and Edward Bruce,
Thomas Fitzgerald--ringing steel
Shakes the hills and the trumpets peal,
Skulls crunch under the iron heel!
Death is the only truce!
Clontarf, Benburb, and Yellow Ford--The Gael with red Death rides alone!
Lamh derg abu! And the riders reel
To Hugh O--onnell-- girding steel
And the lances of Tyrone!
Edward Fitzgerald, Charles Parnell,
Robert Emmet--I smite the harp!
Wolfe Tone and Napper Tandy--hail!
The song that you sang shall never fail
While one brain burns with the fire of the Gael
And one last sword is sharp--
Lamh laidir abu! Lamh derg abu!
Munster and Ulster, north and south,
The old hate flickers and burns anew,
The heather shakes and the pikes gleam blue.
And the old clans charge as they charged with you
Into Death-- red grinning mouth!
We have not won and we have not lost--Fire in Kerry and Fermanagh--We have broken the teeth in the Saxon't boast
Though our dead have littered each heath and coast,
And by God, we will raise another host!
Slainte--Erin go bragh.
The Man on the Ground
Cal Reynolds shifted his tobacco quid to the other side of his mouth as he squinted down the dull blue barrel of his Winchester. His jaws worked methodically, their movement ceasing as he found his bead. He froze into rigid immobility; then his finger hooked on the trigger. The crack of the shot sent the echoes rattling among the hills, and like a louder echo came an answering shot. Reynolds flinched down, flattening his rangy body against the earth, swearing softly. A gray flake jumped from one of the rocks near his head, the ricocheting bullet whining off into space. Reynolds involuntarily shivered. The sound was as deadly as the singing of an unseen rattler.
He raised himself gingerly high enough to peer out between the rocks in front of him. Separated from his refuge by a broad level grown with mesquite-grass and prickly-pear, rose a tangle of boulders similar to that behind which he crouched. From among these boulders floated a thin wisp of whitish smoke. Reynold-- keen eyes, trained to sun-scorched distances, detected a small circle of dully gleaming blue steel among the rocks. That ring was the muzzle of a rifle, but Reynolds well knew who lay behind that muzzle.
The feud between Cal Reynolds and Esau Brill had been long, for a Texas feud. Up in the Kentucky mountains family wars may straggle on for generations, but the geographical conditions and human temperament of the Southwest were not conducive to long-drawn-out hostilities. There feuds were generally concluded with appalling suddenness and finality. The stage was a saloon, the streets of a little cow-town, or the open range. Sniping from the laurel was exchanged for the close-range thundering of six-shooters and sawed-off shotguns which decided matters quickly, one way or the other.
The case of Cal Reynolds and Esau Brill was somewhat out of the ordinary. In the first place, the feud concerned only themselves. Neither friends nor relatives were drawn into it. No one, including the participants, knew just how it started. Cal Reynolds merely knew that he had hated Esau Brill most of his life, and that Brill reciprocated. Once as youths they had clashed with the violence and intensity of rival young catamounts. From that encounter Reynolds carried away a knife scar across the edge of his ribs, and Brill a permanently impaired eye. It had decided nothing. They had fought to a bloody gasping deadlock, and neither had felt any desire to--hake hands and make up.--That is a hypocrisy developed in civilization, where men have no stomach for fighting to the death. After a man has felt his adversary-- knife grate against his bones, his adversary-- thumb gouging at his eyes, his adversary-- boot-heels stamped into his mouth, he is scarcely inclined to forgive and forget, regardless of the original merits of the argument.
So Reynolds and Brill carried their mutual hatred into manhood, and as cowpunchers riding for rival ranches, it followed that they found opportunities to carry on their private war. Reynolds rustled cattle from Brill-- boss, and Brill returned the compliment. Each raged at the other-- tactics, and considered himself justified in eliminating his enemy in any way that he could. Brill caught Reynolds without his gun one night in a saloon at Cow Wells, and only an ignominious flight out the back way, with bullets barking at his heels, saved the Reynolds scalp.
Again Reynolds, lying in the chaparral, neatly knocked his enemy out of his saddle at five hundred yards with a .30-.30 slug, and, but for the inopportune appearance of a line-rider, the feud would have ended there, Reynolds deciding, in the face of this witness, to forego his original intention of leaving his covert and hammering out the wounded man't brains with his rifle butt.
Brill recovered from his wound, having the vitality of a longhorn bull, in common with all his sun-leathered iron-thewed breed, and as soon as he was on his feet, he came gunning for the man who had waylaid him.
Now after these onsets and skirmishes, the enemies faced each other at good rifle range, among the lonely hills where interruption was unlikely.