the region. As
it was, in point of sheer strength, the two were about evenly matched,
but there was a difference in their resources. One was
gymnasium-trained, the other not.

In country wrestling there are the side-hold, and square-hold, and
back-hold, and rough-and-tumble, the last the catch-as-catch-can of
stage struggles. In early boyhood Harlson had learned the tricks of
these, and in the college gymnasium he had supplemented this wisdom by
persistent training in every device of the professional gladiators. He
was there considered something better than the common. And this,
though a life depended on it, was but a wrestling-match. It was but a
struggle to see which should get the other in his power, and blows
count but little in a death-grapple.

They swayed and swung together, but so evenly braced and firm that
minutes passed, while, from a little distance, they would have seemed
but motionless. All who have watched two well-matched wrestlers will
recognize this situation.

In each man's mind was a different immediate aim. Woodell wanted
Harlson on the ground and underneath him; he wanted his hand upon his
throat, and to clutch that throat so savagely and so long that the
man's face would blacken and his tongue protrude, and his limbs finally
relax, and the work attempted on the hay-mow be done completely!
Harlson had but one thought: to overmaster in some way his assailant.

There was a sudden change, a mighty movement on the part of Woodell,
and in an instant the struggle was over.

Glorious are your possibilities, O pretty grip and heave, O
half-Nelson, beloved of wrestlers! What a leverage, what a perfection
of result is with you! What a friend you are in time of peril!
Woodell, too bloodthirsty to feint or dally, released his hold and
stooped and shot forward, his arms low down, to get the country hold,
which rarely failed when once secured. And, even as he did so, in that
very half-second of time, there was a half-turn of the other's body, an
arm about his neck, a wrench forward to a hip, and, big man though he
was, nothing could save him!

His feet left the earth; he whirled on a pivot, high and clear, and
came to the ground with a force to match his weight, his body, like a
whip-lash, cracking its whole length as he struck.

Stunned by the awful shock, he did not move. His adversary stood
glaring at the still form for a moment, dazed himself by the sudden
outcome, then dashed into the