rought it down with all his
sledge-hammer strength.

This time, I was ready for Joe Clark. I was strong. Oh!--I knew just
how strong I was, and I gloried in my possession.

I had a firmer grip of my cudgel than before. There was going to be no
breaking through as he had done last time; not if George Bremner's
right arm was as good as he thought it was.

I met that terrific crash at the place I knew would tell. With the
crack of a gun-shot, his club shivered into a dozen splinters against
mine, leaving him with nothing but a few inches of wood in his torn
hands.

He stood irresolute.

"Will you quit now?" I cried.

But he was game. "Not on your life," he shouted back. "We ain't
started yet. Try your damnedest."

He tossed aside the remainder of his club and jumped at me with his
great hands groping. I stepped back and threw my stick deliberately
far into the forest, then I stopped and met him with his own weapons.
After all, I was now on a more equal footing with him than I had been
when both of us were armed.

We clinched, and locked together. We turned, and twisted, and
struggled. He had the advantage over me in weight and sheer brute
strength, but I had him shaded when it came to knowing how to use the
strength I possessed.

We smashed at each other with our fists wherever and whenever we found
an opening. Our clothes were soon in ribbons. Blood spurted from us
as it would from stuck pigs.

Gasping for breath with roaring sounds,--choking,--half-blind, we
staggered and swayed, smashing into trees and over bushes.

At last I missed my footing and stumbled over a protruding log, falling
backward. Still riveted together,--Joe Clark came with me. The back
of my head struck, with a sickening crash, into a tree and I knew no
more.

When consciousness came back to me, I groaned for a return of the
blessed sleep from which I had awakened, for every inch of my poor body
was a racking agony.

A thousand noises drummed, and thumped, and roared in my head and the
weight of the entire universe seemed to be lying across my chest.

I struggled weakly to free myself, and, as I recollected gradually what
had happened to me, I put out my hands. They came in contact with
something cold and clammy.

It was the bloody face of Joe Clark, who was lying on top of me.

I wriggled and struggled with the cumbersome burden that had been
strangling the flickering life in me. Every effort, every turn was a
ne