"I didn't get a real good look at him," Pop replied to Speedy's questioning. "It was coming on dark and the lights in the barn hadn't been switched on. He was roughly dressed and he cussed at me something terrible. There were two pretty tough looking characters rode with me the last trip. They eyed me hard when I collected their fares. Probably it was one of them. And it seemed to me that there was another fellow lurking in the shadows of the barn. But the second one got no chance to get at me because I yelled so loud for the cops that they both got scared.
"One of them slugged me with a blackjack or something just as I was about to get out of the car. He hit me from the rear and I just happened to duck so that I took the blow on my sore back instead of on the head. If he'd ever happened to catch me square, I would probably have been knocked out. As it was, I was pretty near senseless, but I had enough left to grapple with him. He struck me once under the eye with his fist. The way it cut me up, he must have had brass knuckles on. I was yelling for help all the time. The thugs must have heard footsteps coming and they ran. Pretty soon Johnny Burke, the cop, and old man Walters, the delicatessen feller, came running in. By that time I was lying on my face in the car, all in.
