fight grimly, with fresh determination to end the affair.

"By God! you have a right pretty thrust from the shoulder," he exclaimed.
"Been out before, I take it. But I'll show you something you never
learned. Odds, I'll call your boy's play!"

"Better hold your breath, for you'll need it now," I replied shortly.
"The boy's play is over with."

Step by step I began sternly to force the fighting, driving my point
against him so relentlessly as to hush his speech. Twice we circled,
striking, countering, fighting, our blades glittering ominously in the
starlight, our breathing labored with the fierceness of the fighting.
Both our swords tasted blood, he slicing my forearm, I piercing his
shoulder, yet neither wound sufficed to bring any cessation of effort. We
were mad now with the fever of it, and struggling to kill, panting
fiercely, our faces flushed, the perspiration dripping from our bodies,
our swords darting swiftly back and forth. He was my match, and more,
and, had we been permitted to go on to the end, would have worn me down
by sheer strength. Suddenly, above the clash of steel, came the sound of
voices; our blades were struck up, and the dark forms of men pressed in
between us.

"Stop it, you hotheads!" some one commanded gruffly. "Hold your man,
Tolston, until I get at the reason for this fighting. Who are you? Oh,
Grant! What's the trouble now? The old thing, eh?"

I had no desire to wait his answer, confident that Grant was sufficiently
angry to blurt out everything he knew. They were all facing his way,
actuated by the recognition. Breathless still, yet quick to seize the one