"Bring on this whelp, let's see how he looks.

I ain't seen him yit." "Pa says if Lime went to a saloon where you'd meet him once, you wouldn't clean out that saloon," Johnny went on in a calm voice, with a sort of undercurrent of glee in it.

He saw Steve's anger, and was delighted.
"Bring on this feller; I'll knock the everlasting spots offen 'im f'r two cents." "I'll tell 'im that." "Tell him and be damned," roared Steve, with a wolfish gleam in his eyes that drove the boys away whooping with mingled terror and delight.
Steve saw that the men about him held Johnny's opinion of Lime, and it made him furious.

For several years he had held undisputed sovereignty over the saloons of Rock County, and when, with both sleeves rolled up and eyes flaming with madness, he had leaped into the center of a bar-room floor with a wild shout, everybody got out, by doors, windows or any other way, sometimes taking sash and all, and left him roaring with maniacal delight.
No one used a revolver in those days.

Shooting was almost unknown.
Fights were tests of physical strength and savagery.
Harvest brought into Iowa at that time a flood of rough and hardy men who drifted north with the moving line of ripening wheat, and on Saturday nights the saloons of the county were filled with them, and Steve found many chances to show his power.