The ringleader of the mischief-makers, the young butcher who has before figured in this narrative, looked at him stealthily, whenever he got a chance to study him unobserved; for the truth was, he felt uncomfortable, whenever he found the large, dark eyes fixed on his own little, sharp, deep-set, gray ones.

But he managed to study him pretty well,--first his face, then his neck and shoulders, the set of his arms, the narrowing at the loins, the make of his legs, and the way he moved.

In short, he examined him as he would have examined a steer, to see what he could do and how he would cut up.

If he could only have gone to him and felt of his muscles, he would have been entirely satisfied.

He was not a very wise youth, but he did know well enough, that, though big arms and legs are very good things, there is something besides size that goes to make a man; and he had heard stories of a fighting-man, called "The Spider," from his attenuated proportions, who was yet a terrible hitter in the ring, and had whipped many a big-limbed fellow, in and out of the roped arena.
Nothing could be smoother than the way in which everything went on for the first day or two.