s before that, and I been in fights since then. But
I never been in no harder one. The doctor and the two Blanchet brothers
and me managed to get backed up agin the fence in a row when the rush
come. I guess I done my share, and I guess the Blanchet brothers done
theirn, too. But they was too many of 'em for us--too dern many. It
wouldn't of ended as quick as it did if Doctor Kirby hadn't gone clean
crazy. His back was to the fence, and he cleaned out everything in front
of him, and then he give a wild roar jest like a bull and rushed that
hull gang--twenty men, they was--with his head down. He caught two
fellers, one in each hand, and he cracked their heads together, and he
caught two more, and done the same. But he orter never took his back
away from that fence. The hull gang closed in on him, and down he went
at the bottom of a pile. I was awful busy myself, but I seen that pile
moving and churning. Then I made a big mistake myself. I kicked a feller
in the stomach, and another feller caught my leg, and down I went. Fur
a half a minute I never knowed nothing. And when I come to I was all
mashed about the face, and two fellers was sitting on me.

The crowd was tying Doctor Kirby to that parachute. They straddled
legs over the parachute bar, and tied his feet below it. He was still
fighting, but they was too many fur him. They left his arms untied, but
they held 'em, and then--

Then they cut her loose. She went up like she was shot from a gun, and
as she did Doctor Kirby took a grip on a feller's arm that hadn't let
loose quick enough and lifted him plumb off'n the ground. He slewed
around on the trapeze bar with the feller's weight, and slipped head
downward. And as he slipped he give that feller a swing and let loose
of him, and then ketched himself by the crook of one knee. The feller
turned over twicet in the air and landed in a little crumpled-up pile on
the ground, and never made a sound.

The fellers that had holt of me forgot me and stood up, and I stood up
too, and looked. The balloon was rising fast. Doctor Kirby was trying to
pull himself up to the trapeze bar, twisting and squirming and having
a hard time of it, and shooting higher every second. I reckoned he
couldn't fall complete, fur where his feet was tied would likely hold
even if his knee come straight--but he would die mebby with his head
filling up with blood. But finally he made a squirm and raised himself a
lot and grabbed the rope at one side