white with anger. "I reckon thet the time _hes_ come
fer me ter teach ye a lesson; p'raps then a rifle bullet won't be nowise
necessary. Yo' tie up thet devil, an' I'll hev it out with ye, now."
Wrath robbed him, too, of all caution and he flung his gun far to one
side as Donald, with hands that trembled so violently that he could
barely tie the knots, slipped his handkerchief through Mike's collar and
fastened him securely to a stout bush. Then he faced the infuriated
mountaineer.

"Hit's yo' er me," panted the latter, assuming a pantherlike crouch.

"Let it go at that," answered the city man, dropping naturally into a
fighting position.

The veneer of our vaunted civilization is, at the best, thin, and every
man, in whose veins runs red blood, has within him pent-up volcanic
forces which require but little awakening to produce a soul-shattering
upheaval. Donald knew that his being shouted aloud for battle--why, he
didn't pause to analyze. Judd knew full well what _he_ was fighting
for. It was the woman whom his heart had claimed as his mate, regardless
of what his chances of winning her were.

In college days, Donald had been a trained athlete, and he was still
exceptionally powerful, although city life and his confining work had
robbed his muscles of some of the flexibility and strength which had
once been theirs, and were now possessed by those of his opponent. In
weight, and knowledge of the science of boxing, he far surpassed Judd;
but these odds were evened by the fact that _his_ mind--thoroughly
aroused though it was--held only a desire to punish the other severely,
whereas Judd's passion burned deeper; blood-lust was in his heart and he
saw red. Nothing would satisfy him short of killing the man who seemed
to be the personification of his failure to win Smiles.

The mountaineer opened the fight with a furious rush. Donald
instinctively side-stepped, and met it with a jolting short-arm blow to
the other's lean jaw, which sent the aggressor to the ground.

Like a flash he was up again, wild to close with his rival and get his
fingers about his throat. There, in the little natural amphitheatre,
with only the ancient trees as silent witnesses, was staged again the
oft-fought fight between the boxer and the battler, but the decision was
not to rest on points. No Marquis of Queensberry rules governed, no
watchful referee was present to disqualify one or the other for unfair
tactics.

CHAPTER XV

REAP