punished by none other in God's wide world than Bud Lee. Now all cool
thought had fled, leaving just the hot desire to beat at that which
beat at him, to strike down that which strove to strike him down, to
master his enemy, to see the great, powerful body prone at his feet.
Now he was fighting for that simplest, most potent reason in the world,
just because he was fighting. And, though he knew that he had found a
man as quick and hard and strong as himself, still he told himself,
that he must fight a winning fight--there was some good reason why he
must fight a winning fight.

His whole body was bruised and battered and sore. A glancing blow now
shot him through with pain. Trevors knew how to put his weight behind
his blows, and his weight was well over two hundred pounds. It was
like being hammered with a two-hundred-pound sledge.

Give and take it was from the first blow, with none of the finesse of a
boxers' match, with less thought of escaping punishment than of
inflicting it. More than once had Bud Lee felt that he was falling
only to catch his balance and come back at Trevors; more than once had
Trevors gone reeling backward, smashing into the wall. Many a time did
Melvin count his money won and lost. And Carson, crouching now, tense,
eager, a little fearful, muttered constantly to himself.

"They've both got the sand!" grunted Melvin. "Which one draws the
luck?"

But luck stood by and did not enter into the battle that grew ever
hotter as Bud Lee's and Trevors's gorge rose higher at every blow. It
was to be simply the best man wins, and none of the six men who watched
knew from the beginning until the end who the best man was. What
tricks Trevors knew, he used, and they were met by what cunning lay in
Bud Lee; what strength, what resistance, what power to endure was each
panting body was called upon to the reserve.

Already the spring had gone out of their steps. They came at each
other for the most part more slowly, more cautiously, but more
determined not to give over. Faces glistening with sweat, grimy with
the dust their pounding feet beat up from the floor, the roots of Lee's
hair red where with a bloody hand he had pushed it back, Trevors's lips
swollen and ugly, they fought on until the men who looked at them
wondered just where lay the limits upon which each depended.

"Lee's tough," Carson whispered to himself. "Riding every day an'
working . . . Trevors has been setting in a chair.