-_ram_! Eat 'im
alive! Le's send this outfit to the cleaners!"

"Blink!" called Jerkline Jo shrilly as the pugnacious skinner charged
threateningly at Drummond's truck drivers. He came to a stop. "Don't
make it general unless it becomes necessary," Jo added smoothly.

Meantime the two huge belligerents were hammering stunning blows at
each other. About them now stood silent men in a circle, with the
vast, hot desert stretching away on every side.

It developed shortly that Drummond was an athlete. He was quicker on
his feet than Hiram and knew more tricks of offense and defense.
Hiram, on the other hand, was a bull for strength and endurance, and in
the big-woods country had maintained a reputation as a rough-and-tumble
fighter and wrestler, though most of his encounters had been friendly
bouts. Furthermore, he was cool as one of his Mendocino trout streams,
and he fought in a businesslike way and never allowed himself to lose
his temper.

He was therefore the more deadly, for his endurance was unbounded, and
the punishment that Drummond was able to inflict seemed to have no
effect whatever. And when one of his big fists found its mark a groan
went up from Huber and Tweet. But Jerkline Jo and her rough-and-ready
skinners, the latter all old fighters of the camps and used to unseemly
sights, and the sickening sound of a big fist landing on giving bone,
only watched and waited for the result.

In no time at all, it seemed, the face of the truck man was raw, while
Hiram's showed only bruises. They clinched repeatedly, and soon it
became apparent that Drummond was forcing these clinches.

"You've got 'im goin', Gentle Wild Cat!" yelled Tom Gulick. "Keep
after his mush, ol'-timer! Pretty soon he won't be able to see you;
then clean house with 'im!"

Drummond played for Hiram's wind now, but there was not an ounce of fat
over the stomach that he hammered so repeatedly, and it seemed as if he
were battering hard rubber. He was fast losing his own wind, for his
life had not been so healthy as had that of the man from the Northern
forests. Hiram's punishing fists were finding their target more
frequently now, for the truck man's defense was failing him. He was
slowing up--breathing hard--gulping.

"Guess it's time to stop it, Gentle Wild Cat," complacently observed
Jim McAllen.

Then Hiram finished it. He crowded his big antagonist and beat him to
his knees with blows that seemed to be skull crushing.