“By hell, I’ve had enough of bullying,” I shouted wildly; “I’m not afraid of anything or anybody any more ... if there’s anyone else here that wants a taste of this pipe, let them step up.”

“We ain’t a-tryin’ to fight you-all,” called out the big negro who was in for rape, “we jest don’ want you to kill him an’ git hung foh murduh.”

At the word “murder” I stepped quickly back.

“Well, don’t let him come bothering me or my pal for a fight any more when we’ve done nothing to him.”

“Don’ worry, he won’t no moh!” assured the fiddler....

I threw down the lead pipe.  It had seemed to me that all the while it was my Uncle Landon who had received the blows.

The rough-neck farmer was in bad shape; he was bloodied all over like a stuck pig.  The mulatto girl on the outside had for the last five minutes been occupied in calling out of the window for help.  She managed to attract the attention of a passerby-by.

“What’s the matter?” was called up to her....

“The jailer ain’t downstairs ... an’ de boys is killin’ each other up heah!”

* * * * *

By the time the angry-faced sheriff came with his son, the jailer, and a couple of doctors, we had quieted down.

Bud and the farmer were taken out; by the side of each a pail of water was placed ... they were seated on stools, stripped to the waist.  The surgeons dressed their wounds as if on a battlefield.  “Jack” needed ten stitches in his scalp....  Bud had four knife wounds that demanded sewing up.  Both the boys went pale like ghosts and spewed their bellies empty from weakness and loss of blood....

“Mind you, you chaps in there have raised ’bout enough hell ... ef I hear o’ any more trouble, I’ll take you all out one by one an’ treat each one o’ you-all to a good cowhidin’, law or no law!”

* * * * *

I was let alone after that.  My cowardice had gone forever.  I was now a man among men.  I was happy.  I saw what an easy thing it is to fight, to defend yourself.  I saw what an exhilaration, a pleasure, the exchanging of righteous blows can be.

* * * * *

Always my dream was of being a big man when I got out—­some day.  Always I acted as if living a famous prison romance like that of Baron Von Trenck’s.

* * * * *

I collected from the living voices of my fellow prisoners innumerable jail and cocaine songs, and rhymes of the criminal world.  I wrote them down on pieces of wrapping paper that the jailer occasionally covered the food-basket with in lieu of newspaper.

  “Oh, coco-Marie, and coco-Marai,
  I’se gon’ ta whiff cocaine ’twill I die. 
  Ho! (sniff) Ho! (sniff) baby, take a whiff of me!”

(The sniffing sound indicating the snuffing up into the nostril of the “snow,” or “happy dust,” as it is called in the underworld.)