But she belonged to the Swede's chief runner, his number one bouncer,
as ugly a brute as ever thumped a drunken sailor. The bully objected,
with a deal of obscene threatening, to my fancied raiding of his
property. We had it out with bare knuckles in the Swede's big back
room, with all the little tables pushed against the wall to make
fighting space, and the toughest crowd in San Francisco standing by to
see fair play. I was the younger, and as hard as nails, he was soft
and rotten with evil living, so I thrashed him soundly enough in five
rounds.

After he had taken the count, I turned away and commenced to pull my
shirt on over my head. I heard a sharp curse, a yell of pain, and the
clatter of steel upon the floor. When my head emerged, I beheld my
late antagonist slinking away before the threatening figure of the man
with the scar. The bully's right arm dangled by his side, limp and
broken, and a sheath-knife was lying on the floor, at the big man's
feet. The sight gave me a rather sick feeling at the pit of the
stomach, for I realized I had narrowly escaped being knifed.

The scar-faced man would not listen to my thanks. He bestowed upon me
a cool, bracing glance, and remarked, "You must never take your eyes
off one of that breed!" Then he resumed his seat at a table in the far
corner of the room, and quite plainly dismissed the incident from his
mind.

Indeed, the house as speedily dismissed the incident from Its
collective mind. A fist fight or a knifing was but a momentary
diversion in the Swede's place. Five minutes after he left the room,
the whipped bully left the establishment, his one good hand carrying