the crude alcohol still fumed in their brains. Without it they would
never have answered the Finn's call to rebellion.

He had promised, and their drunken minds believed, that refusing in a
mass to work would automatically halt things until they got their
"rights." They had not expected an open fight. The spur of alcohol had
thrust them over the edge, given them a swifter flow of their
impoverished blood, a temporary confidence in their own prowess, a mock
valor that answered Lund's contemptuous challenge.

Lund, thought Rainey, had done a foolhardy thing in tossing away his
gun. It was magnificent, but it was not war. Pure bravado! But he had
scant time for thinking. Lund tossed him a scrap of advice. "Keep
movin'! Don't let 'em crowd you!" Then the fight was joined.

The girl leaned out from the promontory to watch the tourney. Tamada,
impassive as ever, tended his fires. Sandy crept down to the beach,
drawn despite his will, and shuffled in and out, irresolute, too weak to
attempt to mix in, but excited, eager to help. Deming, Beale, and the
two neutral hunters, stood to one side, waiting, perhaps, to see which
way the fight went, reserves for the apparent victor.

The Finn, best and biggest of the sailors, rushed for Lund, his little
eyes red with rage, crazy with the desire to make good his boast that he
was as good as Lund. In his barbaric way he was somewhat of a dancer,
and his legs were as lissome as his arms. He leaped, striking with fists
and feet.

Lund met him with a fierce upper-cut, short-traveled, sent from the hip.
His enormous hand, bunched to a knuckly lump of stone, knocked the Finn
over, lifting him, before he fell with his nose driven in, its bone
shattered, his lips broken like overripe fruit, and his discolored teeth
knocked out.

He landed on his back, rolling over and over, to lie still, half
stunned, while two more sprang for Lund.

Lund roared with surprise and pain as one caught his red beard and swung
to it, smiting and kicking. He wrapped his left arm about the man,
crushing him close up to him, and, as the other came, diving low,
butting at his solar plexus, the giant gripped him by the collar, using
his own impetus, and brought the two skulls together with a thud that
left them stunned.

The two dropped from Lund's relaxed arms like sacks, and he stepped over
them, alert, poised on the balls of his feet, letting out a shout of
triumph, while he looked about him for his next adv