The Return of the Mucker | Page 7

tin
can would have been proof positive of this without other evidence; but
there seemed plenty more. Yes, the man was a hobo. Billy continued to
stand listening.
The mountains are all hid in mist, the valley is like amethyst, The
poplar leaves they turn and twist, oh, silver, silver green! Out there
somewhere along the sea a ship is waiting patiently, While up the
beach the bubbles slip with white afloat between.
"Gee!" thought Billy Byrne; "but that's great stuff. I wonder where he
gets it. It makes me want to hike until I find that place he's singin'
about."
Billy's thoughts were interrupted by a sound in the wood to one side of
him. As he turned his eyes in the direction of the slight noise which had
attracted him he saw two men step quietly out and cross toward the
man at the camp fire.
These, too, were evidently hobos. Doubtless pals of the poetical one.
The latter did not hear them until they were directly behind him. Then
he turned slowly and rose as they halted beside his fire.
"Evenin', bo," said one of the newcomers.
"Good evening, gentlemen," replied the camper, "welcome to my
humble home. Have you dined?"
"Naw," replied the first speaker, "we ain't; but we're goin' to. Now can
the chatter an' duck. There ain't enough fer one here, let alone three.
Beat it!" and the man, who was big and burly, assumed a menacing
attitude and took a truculent step nearer the solitary camper.

The latter was short and slender. The larger man looked as though he
might have eaten him at a single mouthful; but the camper did not
flinch.
"You pain me," he said. "You induce within me a severe and highly
localized pain, and furthermore I don't like your whiskers."
With which apparently irrelevant remark he seized the matted beard of
the larger tramp and struck the fellow a quick, sharp blow in the face.
Instantly the fellow's companion was upon him; but the camper
retained his death grip upon the beard of the now yelling bully and
continued to rain blow after blow upon head and face.
Billy Byrne was an interested spectator. He enjoyed a good fight as he
enjoyed little else; but presently when the first tramp succeeded in
tangling his legs about the legs of his chastiser and dragging him to the
ground, and the second tramp seized a heavy stick and ran forward to
dash the man's brains out, Billy thought it time to interfere.
Stepping forward he called aloud as he came: "Cut it out, boes! You
can't pull off any rough stuff like that with this here sweet singer. 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."
The tramp who had plumbed the depths of the creek's foot of water and
two feet of soft mud was crawling ashore.
"Whadda YOU want now?" inquired Billy Byrne. "A piece o' soap?"
"I'll get youse yet," spluttered the moist one through his watery
whiskers.
"Ferget it," admonished Billy, "an' hit the trail." He pointed toward the
railroad right of way. "An' you, too, John L," he added turning to the
other victim of his artistic execution, who was now sitting up. "Hike!"
Mumbling and growling the two unwashed shuffled away, and were
presently lost to view along the vanishing track.
The solitary camper had returned to his culinary