"I'm going to kill you."

There was a look in the man's eyes which showed he was not jesting.
Harlson thought very rapidly just then. He recognized the earnestness
of it all, but his sudden terror was now gone. Here were light and air
and even terms with the other. The effect of the choking had passed
away. He felt himself a match for Woodell.

With the revulsion of feeling came then suddenly upon him a rage
against this would-be midnight slayer so great that he was calm in his
very savagery. He laughed, as was his way.

"You were very foolish. You should have brought a knife or club. Kill
me! Why, man, do you suppose if you were to try to get away now I
would let you go? I want you, you murderer, I want you!" And he
reached out his hands toward the other and opened and shut them
clutchingly; and then with a snarl Woodell leaped forward and the two
men grappled like bull-dogs.

Well for Harlson was it that through all the weeks he had been swinging
the maul and ax, and that his muscles were hard and his endurance
great, for Woodell was counted one of the strong men of the region. As
it was, in point of sheer strength, the two were about evenly matched,
but there was a difference in their resources. One was
gymnasium-trained, the other not.

In country wrestling there are the side-hold, and square-hold, and
back-hold, and rough-and-tumble, the last the catch-as-catch-can of
stage struggles. In early boyhood Harlson had learned the tricks of