Of one thing he felt more and more confident, that Donnegan did not have
his revolver with him. Otherwise, he would have used it before. For what
was darkness to this devil, Donnegan. He walked like a cat, and most
likely he could see like a cat in the dark. Instinctively the older
tramp braced himself with his right hand held at a guard before his
breast and the knife poised in his left, just as a man would prepare to
meet the attack of a panther. He even took to probing the darkness in a
strange hope to catch the glimmer of the eyes of Donnegan as he moved to
the attack. If there were a hair's breadth of light, then Donnegan
himself must go down. A single blow would do it.

But the devil had instructed his favorite Donnegan how to fight. He did
not come lunging through the shadows to meet the point of that knife.
Instead, he had worked a snaky way along the floor and now he leaped in
and up at Lefty, taking him under the arms.

A dozen hands, it seemed, laid hold on Lefty. He fought like a demon and
tore himself away, but the multitude of hands pursued him. They were
small hands. Where they closed they tore the clothes and bit into his
very flesh. Once a hand had him by the throat, and when Lefty jerked
himself away it was with a feeling that his flesh had been seared by
five points of red-hot iron. All this time his knife was darting; once
it ripped through cloth, but never once did it find the target. And half
a second later Donnegan got his hold. The flash of the knife as Lefty
raised it must have guided the other. He shot his right hand up behind
the left shoulder of the other and imprisoned the wrist. Not only did it
make the knife hand helpless, but by bearing down with his own weight
Donnegan could put his enemy in most exquisite torture.