e with both feet on the other slant of the timber. Jimmy
Powers felt the jar, and acknowledged it by the spasmodic jerk with
which he counterbalanced Darrell's weight. But he was not thrown.

As though this daring and hazardous manoeuvre had opened the combat,
both men sprang to life. Sometimes the log rolled one way, sometimes the
other, sometimes it jerked from side to side like a crazy thing, but
always with the rapidity of light, always in a smother of spray and
foam. The decided _spat, spat, spat_ of the reversing blows from the
caulked boots sounded like picket firing. I could not make out the
different leads, feints, parries, and counters of this strange method of
boxing, nor could I distinguish to whose initiative the various
evolutions of that log could be described. But I retain still a vivid
mental picture of two men nearly motionless above the waist, nearly
vibrant below it, dominating the insane gyrations of a stick of pine.

The crowd was appreciative and partisan--for Jimmy Powers. It howled
wildly, and rose thereby to ever higher excitement. Then it forgot its
manners utterly and groaned when it made out that a sudden splash
represented its favourite, while the indomitable Darrell still trod the
quarter-deck as champion birler for the year.

I must confess I was as sorry as anybody. I climbed down from my
cormorant roost, and picked my way between the alleys of aromatic piled
lumber in order to avoid the press, and cursed the little gods heartily
for undue partiality in the wrong direction. In this manner I happened
on Jimmy Powers himself seated dripping on a board and examining his
bared foot.

"I'm sorry," said I behind him. "How did he do it?"

He whirled, and I could see that his laughing boyish face had become
suddenly grim and stern, and that his eyes were shot with blood.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" he growled disparagingly. "Well, that's how he
did it."

He held out his foot. Across the instep and at the base of the toes ran
two rows of tiny round punctures from which the blood was oozing. I
looked very inquiring.

"He corked me!" Jimmy Powers explained. "Jammed his spikes into me!
Stepped on my foot and tripped me, the----" Jimmy Powers certainly could
swear.

"Why didn't you make a kick?" I cried.

"That ain't how I do it," he muttered, pulling on his heavy woollen
sock.

"But no," I insisted, my indignation mounting. "It's an outrage! That
crowd was with you. All you had to do was t