epped and countered. George's
ear rang. He laughed, his self-respect rushing back with the keen joy of
battle. In Lambert's face, stripped of its habitual repression, he
recognized an equal excitement. It was a man's fight, with blood drawn
at the first moment, staining both of them. Lambert boxed skillfully,
and his muscles were hard, but after the first moment George saw
victory, and set out to force it. He looked for fear in the other's eyes
then, and longed to see it, but those eyes remained as unafraid as
Sylvia's until there wasn't left in them much of anything conscious. As
a last chance Lambert clinched, and they went down, fighting like a pair
of furious terriers. George grinned as he felt those eclectic hands
endeavouring in the most brotherly fashion to torture him. He managed to
pin them to the ground. He laughed happily.

"Thought you hated to touch me."

"You fight like a tiger, anyway," Lambert gasped.

"Had enough?"

Lambert nodded.

"I know when I'm through."

George didn't release him at once. His soul expanded with a sense of
power and authority earned by his own effort. It seemed an omen. It
urged him too far.

"Then," he mused, "I guess I'd better let you run home and tell your
father what I've done to you."

"That," Lambert said, "proves I was right, and I'm sorry I fought you."

George tried to think. He felt hot and angry. Was the other, after all,
the better man?

"I take it back," he muttered. "Ought to have had enough sense to know
that a fellow that fights like you's no tattle-tale."

"Thanks, Morton."

George's sense of power grew. He couldn't commence too soon to use it.

"See here, Mr. Planter, I came up here to help with some horses your
people didn't know how to handle, and let myself get shifted to this
other job; but I'm not your father's slave, and anyway I'm getting out."

He increased the pressure on Lambert's arms.

"Just to remind you what we've been fighting about, and that I'm not
your slave, you call me Mr. Morton, or George, just as if I was about as
good as you."

Lambert smiled broadly.

"Will you kindly let me go--George?"

George sprang up, grinning.

"How you feel, Mr. Lam----" He caught himself--"Mr. Planter?"

Lambert struggled to his feet.

"Quite unwell, thanks. I'm sorry you made such a damned fool of yourself
this afternoon. We might have had some pretty useful times boxing
together."

"I'd just as leave tell you," George said, glancing