nd, slashing down a bunch
of the maidenhair fern that grew like nettles around them, he wiped the
blood gently, almost affectionately, from the leopard's cat-like face.

There was about these two men a strict attention to the matter in hand,
a mutual and common respect for all things pertaining to sport, a quiet
sense of settling down without delay to the regulation of necessary
detail that promised well for any future interest they might have in
common.

So these highly-educated young gentlemen turned up their sleeves and
steeped themselves to the elbow in gore. Moreover, they did it with a
certain technical skill and a distinct sense of enjoyment. Truly, the
modern English gentleman is a strange being. There is nothing his soul
takes so much delight in as the process of getting hot and very
dirty, and, if convenient, somewhat sanguinary. You cannot educate the
manliness out of him, try as you will; and for such blessings let us in
all humbleness give thanks to Heaven.

This was the bringing together of Jack Meredith and Guy Oscard--two
men who loved the same woman. They knelt side by side, and Jack
Meredith--the older man, the accomplished, gifted gentleman of the
world, who stood second to none in that varied knowledge required
nowadays of the successful societarian--Jack Meredith, be it noted,
humbly dragged the skin away from the body while Guy Oscard cut the
clinging integuments with a delicate touch and finished skill.

They laid the skin out on the trampled maidenhair, and contemplated it
with silent satisfaction. In the course of their inspection they both
arrived at the head at the same moment. The two holes in the hide, just
above the eyes, came under their notice at the same moment, and they
turned and smiled gravely at each other, thinking the same thought--the
sort of thought that Englishmen rarely put into intelligible English.

"I'm glad we did that," said Guy Oscard at length, suddenly. "Whatever
comes of this expedition of ours--if we fight like hell, as we probably
shall, before it is finished--if we hate each other ever afterwards,
that skin ought to remind us that we are much of a muchness."

It might have been put into better English; it might almost have sounded
like poetry had Guy Oscard been possessed of the poetic soul. But this,
fortunately, was not his; and all that might have been said was left to
the imagination of Meredith. What he really felt was that there need
be no rivalry, and t