Even the strikers gasped their appreciation of this honourable act. A murmur of applause came from both sides. The foreigner shook his shaggy blond head and came uncertainly to his feet and the sanguinary battle went on. Both men were tired. Hand’s breath was coming in short, choking gasps from his tortured lungs, and his face was one smear of blood. Donald’s left eye was closed; his lips were split, and the gash over his eye had covered his body with blood. His arms were tired from pounding the iron jaw of his adversary. The big logger’s strength was waning; the pounding administered by Donald was beginning to tell. But Donald was too weak to avoid his rushes. In a clinch Hand again butted him with his head.
Blackie, his eyes blazing, leaped forward with a peavy handle in his hand. “You fight fair, d—— you, or I’ll brain you!” he shouted. One of the strikers attempted to wrest the peavy handle from his hands. Blackie felled him with a blow of his fist. It looked for one tense moment as if there would be a general mêlée. There came sullen mutterings from the crowd of strikers.
“Back!” John Hiller’s voice rang out sharp and clear. “I’ll kill the first man that interferes!” The eyes shining over the long-barrelled Colt held a dangerous glint. The men who had moved to the centre backed away hurriedly.
Back and forth the combatants struggled, neither gaining any decided advantage, each trying to land a blow that would end the battle. Reeling, gasping, striking, falling to their knees from sheer weakness, the men fought on under a burning noonday sun.
No knight of old ever fought more nobly for a fair lady’s honour than did Donald McLean that day by the lake-shore. His undershirt was torn to tatters, showing his white skin blotched with welts and bruises. He was losing his sense of distance. Swinging wildly with his left, his wrist struck Hand’s adamantine jaw and the onlookers saw his face writhe in pain as the arm fell helplessly to his side.
“Oh, stop it, Andy, please stop it!” sobbed Connie, her arms held out in entreaty.
Donald’s face turned a sickly grey, and as the well-nigh sightless foreigner staggered weakly toward him, he with a strength born of agony whipped his right to his opponent’s sagging jaw. The big man faltered, sank slowly to hands and knees, then stretched at full length, his face pressing the soil, quivered and lay still. No sound came from the crowd. The thing had been too stupendous for immediate shouting or applause. Donald stood for an instant swaying uncertainly, then turned to stumble toward his cabin.