You ol' son-of-a-gun!" bellowed Big Bill, half in the surly anger
which is the natural right of a man rudely awakened, half in tremulous
joy. "Wait ontil I git my eyes open good an' I'll roll you like you
was dough an' I'm makin' biscuits out'n you!"

Evidently he had his eyes "open good" before he had done talking. He
was upon his feet, the big, swaying body oddly like a clumsy black
bear's, his big hands lifted in front of him. And then he threw
himself forward, close to two hundred and fifty pounds of brawn and
bone hurled like a boulder from a catapult. Some one had turned up the
lantern wick. The black head and the red head from which the hat had
dropped came together, there was the thud of two strong bodies meeting
with an impact that brought a little coughing grunt from each, and Red
Reckless had done what any man must do before such a thunderbolt. He
was flung backward, went down, and the two big bodies struck hard upon
the bare floor. And above the crash of the falling bodies there were
two other sounds, Big Bill's grunt, and the laughter of Red Reckless.

They were down, and Big Bill was topmost. But by the laws of the game
a man must be forced back until his two shoulders touch the floor
before he is beaten. Wayne Shandon's left shoulder was still two
inches from the floor.

"You would wake a man up," grumbled Big Bill with that fierceness of
tone which spoke a moment of rare delight.

"I'm going to show you something, Bill," gasped Wayne, half choked with
the breath driven out of his lungs by the great bulk on top of him and
by the laughter within his soul which had not been driven out.
"Something I learned from a Jap about three feet high. It cost me a
hundred dollars and a broken collar bone. I'll let you off easier,
Bill."

The light was none too good, perhaps the boys were not yet wide awake.
They didn't know how the trick was done, and it wasn't at all clear to
Big Bill.

Wayne seemed to grow very limp beneath his hard hands and watchful
eyes. Ready for trickery Big Bill, while he bore down hard on the left
shoulder, and wrenched and twisted at the corded neck, expected
anything. He had considerably less respect for a Jap than for a horse,
looking upon the race as mimicking apes and not men at all, and he had
no wish to be bested by a Jap trick. Yet Big Bill didn't understand.

Somehow Wayne Shandon slipping out of Bill's grasp like an eel through
its native mud, had run an arm und