t have given the command of attack to a dog,
and under the sting of indignity, my reason once more slipped from me. I
dived for Dawson and saw him reel backward under the blow I planted on
his sneering mouth, but at the same instant the second pair of arms went
round me from behind. Bud had "taken hold" of me and I am forced to say
he did it with the effective enthusiasm of an octopus. I fancy that had
there been an audience, that would have been pronounced a good fight.
Sometimes the three of us swayed from side to side of the road in a
triangular wrestling match; sometimes we rolled about and clawed at each
other on the ground.

The moon had set and between gasping breaths, out of sweat-blinded and
battered eyes, I was occasionally conscious of a steel-blue sky in which
the stars seemed to dance about and of unsteady silhouetted trees. But
I was more sensible of the cruel ruttiness of the road on which our
feet slipped and our ankles twisted. Curt Dawson was one of those
rough-and-tumble battlers who laugh as they fight. His companion kept up
a running string of muttered curses, but both of them were strong,
wolf-like huskies of tireless sinews and savage determination. There
was, of course, no fairness of combat, but I had the advantage of trying
to kill while they were fighting to take me alive, though with odds of
two to one. I suppose it did not last long, but it seemed to me as
interminable as the wars of Valhalla. I was very dizzy and nauseated
from their kicks in the stomach and blind from blood that ran down out
of a cut in my forehead--Curt Dawson wore a heavy ring--still I had the
satisfaction of seeing that "Bud" was badly lamed, possibly from a
twisted ankle, and that the gun-fighter himself was far from fresh. At
last Garvin's head villain came into a clinch with his arms about me and
under his vice-like grip I felt my ribs creaking. Bud thought me whipped
and had drawn off for a moment of much-needed rest. Then I got my hands
up and had the satisfaction of feeling my fingers close on Dawson's
throat. The touch of flesh in my grasp seemed to rally my ebbing
strength and I closed down with all the vicious force I could muster,
until my nails sunk deep under the skin and his own arms relaxed and his
agonized breath rattled in his windpipe. We went down locked together,
but my grasp at his throat held, and as we rolled and wallowed I found
myself on top and gripped the harder. I knew only one desire--to choke