y name," said Ralph quietly.

"Well," asserted the big fellow, "I've been looking for you, and I'm
going to whip the life out of you."

CHAPTER VI

FOUR MEDALS

Marvin Clark stepped promptly forward at the announcement of the
overgrown lout, who had signified his intention of whipping the young
engineer of No. 999. Clark had told Ralph that athletics was his
strong forte. He looked it as he squared firmly before the bully.

"Going to wallop somebody, are you?" spoke Clark cooly. "Watch the
system-cylinder"--and the speaker gave to his arms a rotary motion so
rapid that it was fairly dizzying, "or piston rods," and one fist met
the bulging breast of the fellow with a force that sent him reeling
backwards several feet.

"Hey, there! you keep out of this, if you don't want to be
massacreed!" spoke a voice at Clark's elbow, and he was seized by
several of the rowdy crowd and forced back from the side of Ralph.

"Hands off!" shouted Clark, and he cleared a circle about him with a
vigorous sweep of his arms.

"Don't you mix in a fair fight, then," warned a big fellow in the
crowd, threateningly.

"Ah, it's going to be a fair fight, is it?" demanded Clark.

"Yes, it is."

"I'll see to it that it is," remarked Clark briefly.

The fellow he had dazed with his rapid-fire display of muscle had
regained his poise, and was now again facing the young engineer.

"Understand?" he demanded, hunching up his shoulders and staring
viciously at Ralph. "I'm Billy Bouncer."

"Are you?" said Ralph simply.

"I am, and don't you forget it. I happen to have got a tip from my
uncle, John Evans, of Stanley Junction. I guess you know him."

"I do," announced Ralph bluntly, "and if you are as mean a specimen of
a boy as he is of a man, I'm sorry for you."

"What?" roared the young ruffian, raising his fists. "Do you see
that?" and he put one out, doubled up.

"I do, and it's mighty dirty, I can tell you."

"Insult me, do you? I guess you don't know who I am. Champion,
see?--light-weight champion of this burg, and I wear four medals, and
here they are," and Bouncer threw back his coat and vauntingly
displayed four gleaming silver discs pinned to his vest.

"If you had four more, big as cartwheels, I don't see how I would be
interested," observed Ralph.

"You don't?" yelled Bouncer, hopping mad at failing to dazzle this new
opponent with an acquisition that had awed his juvenile cohorts and
admirers. "Why, I'll grind