ow you'll all pitch on me."

Scully smote him reproachfully on the arm. "Tut, man!" he yelled. The
wind tore the words from Scully's lips and scattered them far alee.

"You are all a gang of--" boomed the Swede, but the storm also seized
the remainder of this sentence.

Immediately turning their backs upon the wind, the men had swung
around a corner to the sheltered side of the hotel. It was the
function of the little house to preserve here, amid this great
devastation of snow, an irregular V-shape of heavily incrusted grass,
which crackled beneath the feet. One could imagine the great drifts
piled against the windward side. When the party reached the
comparative peace of this spot it was found that the Swede was still
bellowing.

"Oh, I know what kind of a thing this is! I know you'll all pitch on
me. I can't lick you all!"

Scully turned upon him panther fashion. "You'll not have to whip all
of us. You'll have to whip my son Johnnie. An' the man what troubles
you durin' that time will have me to dale with."

The arrangements were swiftly made. The two men faced each other,
obedient to the harsh commands of Scully, whose face, in the subtly
luminous gloom, could be seen set in the austere impersonal lines that
are pictured on the countenances of the Roman veterans. The
Easterner's teeth were chattering, and he was hopping up and down like
a mechanical toy. The cowboy stood rock-like.

The contestants had not stripped off any clothing. Each was in his
ordinary attire. Their fists were up, and they eyed each other in a
calm that had the elements of leonine cruelty in it.

During this pause, the Easterner's mind, like a film, took lasting
impressions of three men--the iron-nerved master of the ceremony; the
Swede, pale, motionless, terrible; and Johnnie, serene yet ferocious,
brutish yet heroic. The entire prelude had in it a tragedy greater
than the tragedy of action, and this aspect was accentuated by the
long, mellow cry of the blizzard, as it sped the tumbling and wailing
flakes into the black abyss of the south.

"Now!" said Scully.

The two combatants leaped forward and crashed together like bullocks.
There was heard the cushioned sound of blows, and of a curse squeezing
out from between the tight teeth of one.

As for the spectators, the Easterner's pent-up breath exploded from
him with a pop of relief, absolute relief from the tension of the
preliminaries. The cowboy bounded into the air with a yowl.