The proprietor of the place must have known what was going on, and the danger in it, because he kept leaning over the bar and saying, “Shush, now quit it,” to the showy-off man, but it didn’t do any good. The fellow kept prancing like a turkey-cock and he put his hat on one side of his head and stopped right back of the big man and sang that song about the crack in the old tin pan. He was one of the kind you can’t shush until they get their blocks knocked off, and it didn’t take him long to come to it that time anyhow. Because the big fellow just kept on muttering to his kid and drinking his whisky, as though he hadn’t heard anything, and then suddenly he turned and his big hand flashed out and he grabbed, not the fellow who had been showing off, but me. With just a sweep of his arm he brought me up against his big body. Then he shoved me over with my breast jammed against the bar and looking right into his kid’s face and he said, “Now you watch him, and if you let him fall I’ll kill you,” in just quiet ordinary tones as though he was saying “good morning” to some neighbor. Then the kid leaned over and threw his arms around my head, and in spite of that I did manage to screw my head around enough to see what happened. It was a sight I’ll never forget. The big fellow had whirled around, and he had the showy-off man by the shoulder now, and the fellow’s face was a sight. The big man must have had some reputation as a bad man in the town, even though he was cracked for the man with the fancy vest had his mouth open now, and his hat had fallen off his head, and he was silent and scared. Once, when I was a tramp, I saw a kid killed by a train. The kid was walking on the rail and showing off before some other kids, by letting them see how close he could let an engine come to him before he got out of the way. And the engine was whistling and a woman, over on the porch of a house nearby, was jumping up and down and screaming, and the kid let the engine get nearer and nearer, wanting more and more to show off, and then he stumbled and fell. God, I’ll never forget the look on his face, in just the second before he got hit and killed, and now, there in that saloon, was the same terrible look on another face. I closed my eyes for a moment and was sick all through me and then, when I opened my eyes, the big man’s fist was just coming down in the other man’s face. The one blow knocked him cold and he fell down like a beast hit with an axe. And then the most terrible thing of all happened. The big man had on heavy boots, and he raised one of them and brought it down on the other man’s shoulder, as he lay white and groaning on the floor. I could hear the bones crunch and it made me so sick I could hardly stand up, but I had to stand up and hold on to that kid or I knew it would be my turn next.