that Pat Hanrahan's mug looking hungry and willing? Come on,
Pat." Pat Hanrahan, ex-bare-knuckle-prize fighter and
roughhouse-expert, stepped forth. The two men came against each
other in grips, and almost before he had exerted himself the
Irishman found himself in the merciless vise of a half-Nelson
that buried him head and shoulders in the snow. Joe Hines,
ex-lumber-jack, came down with an impact equal to a fall from a
two-story building--his overthrow accomplished by a
cross-buttock,
delivered, he claimed, before he was ready.

There was nothing exhausting in all this to Daylight. He did
not heave and strain through long minutes. No time, practically,
was occupied. His body exploded abruptly and terrifically in one
instant, and on the next instant was relaxed. Thus, Doc Watson,
the gray-bearded, iron bodied man without a past, a fighting
terror himself, was overthrown in the fraction of a second
preceding his own onslaught. As he was in the act of gathering
himself for a spring, Daylight was upon him, and with such
fearful suddenness as to crush him backward and down. Olaf
Henderson, receiving his cue from this, attempted to take
Daylight unaware, rushing upon him from one side as he stooped
with extended hand to help Doc Watson up. Daylight dropped on
his hands and knees, receiving in his side Olaf's knees. Olaf's
momentum carried him clear over the obstruction in a long, flying
fall. Before he could rise, Daylight had whirled him over on his
back and was rubbing his face and ears with snow and shoving
handfuls down his neck. "Ay ban yust as good a man as you ban,
Daylight," Olaf spluttered, as he pulled himself to his feet; "but
by Yupiter, I ban navver see a grip like that." French Louis was