"Gordon," he said, "you swore to a ---- lie about me a while ago."
"How do you want to fight?" asked Gordon.
"Fair!"
"Come on"; and Gordon started for the town limits across the river,
Richards following on horseback. At a store, Gordon unbuckled his belt
and tossed his pistol and his police badge inside. Jack Woods, seeing
this, followed, and the Infant, seeing Woods, followed too. The law was
law, but this affair was personal, and would be settled without the
limits of law and local obligation. Richards tried to talk to Gordon,
but the sergeant walked with his head down, as though he could not
hear--he was too enraged to talk.
While Richards was hitching his horse in the bushes the sergeant stood
on the bank of the river with his arms folded and his chin swinging from
side to side. When he saw Richards in the open he rushed for him like a
young bull that feels the first swelling of his horns. It was not a
fair, stand-up, knock-down English fight, but a Scotch tussle, in which
either could strike, kick, bite or gouge. After a few blows they
clinched and whirled and fell, Gordon on top--with which advantage he
began to pound the tough from the Pocket savagely. Woods made as if to
pull him off, but the Infant drew his pistol.
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