David no longer saw the horde of faces beyond the thick bars of the
cage. His last glance, shot past the lowered head and hulking shoulders
of his giant adversary, went to the Girl. He noticed that she had ceased
her struggling and was looking toward him. After that his eyes never
left Brokaw's face. Until now it had not seemed that Brokaw was so big
and so powerful, and, sizing up his enemy in that moment before the
first rush, he realized that his one hope was to keep him from using his
enormous strength at close quarters. A clinch would be fatal. In
Brokaw's arms he would be helpless; he was conscious of an unpleasant
thrill as he thought how easy it would be for the other to break his
back, or snap his neck, if he gave him the opportunity. Science! What
would it avail him here, pitted against this mountain of flesh and bone
that looked as though it might stand the beating of clubs without being
conquered! His first blow returned his confidence, even if it had
wavered slightly. Brokaw rushed. It was an easy attack to evade, and
David's arm shot out and his fist landed against Brokaw's head with a
sound that was like the crack of a whip. Hauck would have gone down
under that blow like a log. Brokaw staggered. Even he realized that this
was science--the skill of the game--and he was grinning as he advanced
again. He could stand a hundred blows like that--a grim and ferocious
Achilles with but one vulnerable point, the end of his jaw. David waited
and watched for his opportunity as he gave ground slowly. Twice they
circled about the blood-spattered arena, Brokaw following him with
leisurely sureness, and yet delaying his attack as if in that steady
retreat of his victim he saw torture too satisfying to put an end to at
once. David measured his carelessness, the slow almost unguarded
movement of his great body, his unpreparedness for a _coup de main_--and
like a flash he launched himself forward with all the weight of his body
behind his effort.
It missed the other's jaw by two inches, that catapeltic blow--striking
him full in the mouth, breaking his yellow teeth and smashing his thick
lips so that the blood sprang out in a spray over his hairy chest, and
as his head rocked backward David followed with a swift left-hander, and
a second time missed the jaw with his right--but drenched his clenched
fist in blood. Out of Brokaw there came a cry that was like the low roar
of a beast; a cry that was the most inhuman sound David had ever heard
from a human throat, and in an instant he found himself battling not for
victory, not for that opportunity he twice had missed, but for his life.
Against that rushing bulk, enraged almost to madness, the ingenuity of
his training alone saved him from immediate extinction. How many times
he struck in the 120 seconds following his blow to Brokaw's mouth he
could never have told. He was red with Brokaw's blood. His face was warm
with it. His hands were as if painted, so often did they reach with
right and left to Brokaw's gory visage. It was like striking at a
monstrous thing without the sense of hurt, a fiend that had no brain
that blows could sicken, a body that was not a body but an enormity that
had strangely taken human form. Brokaw had struck him once--only
once--in those two minutes, but blows were not what he feared now. He
was beating himself to pieces, literally beating himself to pieces as a
ship might have hammered itself against a reef, and fighting with every
breath to keep himself out of the fatal clinch. His efforts were costing
him more than they were costing his antagonist. Twice he had reached his
jaw, twice Brokaw's head had rocked back on his shoulders--and then he
was there again, closing in on him, grinning, dripping red to the soles
of his feet, unconquerable. Was there no fairness out there beyond the
bars of the cage? Were they all like the man he was fighting--devils? An
intermission--only half a minute. Enough to give him a chance. The slow,
invincible beast he was hammering almost had him as his thoughts
wandered. He only half fended the sledge-like blow that came straight
for his face. He ducked, swung up his guard like lightning, and was
saved from death by a miracle. That blow would have crushed in his
face--killed him. He knew it. Brokaw's huge fist landed against the side
of his head and grazed off like a bullet that had struck the slanting
surface of a rock. Yet the force of it was sufficient to send him
crashing against the bars--and _down_.
In that moment he thanked God for Brokaw's slowness. He had a clear
recollection afterward of almost having spoken the words as he lay dazed
and helpless for an infinitesimal space of time. He expected Brokaw to
end it there. But Brokaw stood mopping the blood from his face, as if
partly blinded by it, while from beyond the cage there came a swiftly
growing rumble of voices. He heard a scream. It was the scream--the
agonized cry--of the Girl, that brought him to his feet while Brokaw was
still wiping the hot flow from his dripping jaw. It was that cry that
cleared his brain, that called out to him in its despair that he _must_
win, that all was lost for her as well as for himself if he was
vanquished--for more positively than at any other time during the fight
he felt now that defeat would mean death. It had come to him definitely
in the savage outcry of joy when he was down. There was to be no mercy.
He had read the ominous decree. And Brokaw....
He was like a madman as he came toward him again. There was no longer
the leer on his face. There was in his battered and swollen countenance
but one emotion. Blood and hurt could not hide it. It blazed like fires
in his half-closed eyes. It was the desire to kill. The passion which
quenches itself in the taking of life, and every fibre in David's brain
rose to meet it. He knew that it was no longer a matter of blows on his
part--it was like the David of old facing Goliath with his bare hands.
Curiously the thought of Goliath came to him in these flashing moments.
Here, too, there must be trickery, something unexpected, a deadly
stratagem, and his brain must work out his salvation quickly. Another
two or three minutes and it would be over one way or the other. He made
his decision. The tricks of his own art were inadequate, but there was
still one hope--one last chance. It was the so-called "knee-break" of
the bush country, a horrible thing, he had thought, when Father Roland
had taught it to him. "Break your opponent's knees," the Missioner had
said, "and you've got him." He had never practised it. But he knew the
method, and he remembered the Little Missioner's words--"when he's
straight facing you, with all your weight, like a cannon ball!" And
suddenly he shot himself out like that, as Brokaw was about to rush upon
him--a hundred and sixty pounds of solid flesh and bone against the
joints of Brokaw's knees!
The shock dazed him. There was a sharp pain in his left shoulder, and
with that shock and pain he was conscious of a terrible cry as Brokaw
crashed over him. He was on his feet when Brokaw was on his knees.
Whether or not they were really broken he could not tell. With all the
strength in his body he sent his right again and again to the bleeding
jaw of his enemy. Brokaw reached up and caught him in his huge arms, but
that jaw was there, unprotected, and David battered it as he might have
battered a rock with a hammer. A gasping cry rose out of the giant's
throat, his head sank backward--and through a red fury, through blood
that spattered up into his face, David continued to strike until the
arms relaxed about him, and with a choking gurgle of blood in his
throat, Brokaw dropped back limply, as if dead.
And then David looked again beyond the bars. The staring faces had drawn
nearer to the cage, bewildered, stupefied, disbelieving, like the faces
of stone images. For a space it was so quiet that it seemed to him they
must hear his panting breath and the choking gurgle that was still in
Brokaw's throat. The victor! He flung back his shoulders and held up his
head, though he had great desire to stagger against one of the bars and
rest. He could see the Girl and Hauck--and now the girl was standing
alone, looking at him. She had seen him! She had seen him beat that
giant beast, and a great pride rose in his breast and spread in a joyous
light over his bloody face. Suddenly he lifted his hand and waved it at
her. In a flash she was coming to him. She would have broken her way
through the cordon of men, but Hauck stopped her. He had seen Hauck
talking swiftly to two of the white men. And now Hauck caught the girl
and held her back. David knew that he was dripping red and he was glad
that she came no nearer. Hauck was telling her to go to the house, and
David nodded, and with a movement of his hand made her understand that
she must obey. Not until he saw her going did he pick up his shirt and
step out among the men. Three or four of the whites went to Brokaw. The
rest stared at him still in that amazed silence as he passed among them.
He nodded and smiled at them, as though beating Brokaw had not been such
a terrible task after all. He noticed there was scarcely an expression
in the faces of the Indians. And then he found himself face to face with
Hauck, and a step or two behind Hauck were the two white men he had
talked to so hurriedly. One of them was the man David had brushed
against in passing through the big room. There was a grin in his face
now. There was a grin in Hauck's face, and a grin in the face of the
third man, and to David's astonishment Hauck thrust out his hand.
"Shake, Raine! I'd have bet a thousand to fifty you were loser, but
there wasn't a dollar going your way. A great fight!"
He turned to the other two.
"Take Raine to his room, boys. Help 'im wash up. I've got to see to
Brokaw--an' this crowd."
David protested. He was all right. He needed only water and soap, both
of which were in his room, but Hauck insisted that it wasn't square, and
wouldn't look right, if he didn't have friends as well as Brokaw. Brokaw
had forced the affair so suddenly that none of them had had time or
thought to speak an encouraging or friendly word before the fight.
Langdon and Henry would go with him now. He walked between the two to
the Nest, and entered his room with them. Langdon, the tall man who had
looked hatred at him last night, poured water into a tin basin while
Henry, the smaller man, closed his door. They appeared quite
companionable, especially Langdon.
"Didn't like you last night," he confessed frankly. "Thought you was one
of them damned police, running your nose into our business mebby."
He stood beside David, with the pail of water in his hand, and as David
bent over the basin Henry was behind him. He had drawn something from
his pocket, and was edging up close. As David dipped his hands in the
water he looked up into Langdon's face, and he saw there a strange and
unexpected change--that deadly malignity of last night. In that moment
the object in Henry's hand fell with terrific force on his head and he
crumpled down over the basin. He was conscious of a single agonizing
pain, like a hot iron thrust suddenly through him, and then a great and
engulfing pit of darkness closed about him.