ess tremendous grip wherein he was taken.

Breast to breast they fought, straining, swaying a little this way or
that, but neither yielding an inch. Their muscles stood out like bars of
steel, their breath came heavily, neither man was conscious any more of
anything save his need to conquer and win and overthrow his enemy.

The quick passion of hot rage that had come upon Dunn when he felt the
other's unexpected blow still burned and flamed intensely, so that he
no longer remembered even the strange and high purpose which had brought
him here.

His adversary, too, had lost all consciousness of all other things in
the lust of this fierce physical battle, and when he gave presently a
loud, half-strangled shout, it was not fear that he uttered or a cry
for aid, but solely for joy in such wild struggle and efforts as he had
never known before.

And Dunn spake no word and uttered no sound, but strove all the more
with all the strength of every nerve and muscle he possessed once again
to pluck the other up that he might dash him down a second time.

In quick and heavy gasps came their breaths as they still swayed and
struggled together, and though each exerted to the utmost a strength few
could have withstood, each found that in the other he seemed to have met
his match.

In vain Dunn tried again to lift his adversary up so that he might hurl
him to the ground. It was an effort, a grip that seemed as though it
might have torn up an oak by the roots, but the other neither budged nor
flinched beneath it.

And in vain, in his turn, did he try to bend Dunn backwards to crush him
to the earth, it was an effort before which one might have thought that
iron and stone must have given away, but Dunn still sustained it.

Thus dreadfully they fought, there in the darkness, there in the silence
of the night.

Dreadfully they wrestled, implacable, fierce, determined, every primeval
passion awake and strong again, and slowly, very slowly, that awful grip
laid upon the big man's body began to tell.

His breathing grew more difficult, his efforts seemed aimed more to
release himself than to overcome his adversary, he gave way an inch or
two, no more, but still an inch or two of ground.

There was a sharp sound, like a thin, dry twig snapping beneath a
careless foot.

It was one of his ribs breaking beneath the dreadful and intolerable
pressure of Dunn's enormous grip. But neither of the combatants heard
or knew, and with one l