forbid!" screamed Père Marquette again. "Another time it is nothing. To-night it is to insult Mamma Jeanne. Stop it, chiens!"
But Mamma Jeanne had her own word to say. Her plump arms were about her indignant spouse, dragging him back.
"Let them be," she commanded. "Is not George a guest and has he not the right to put his heel upon an evil serpent? It is just," she cried, her eyes all fire. "It will be but a little minute and, pouf! it is all over. Let them be!"
She had great faith in the prowess of her man, had Mère Marquette. Had there been a thunder storm outside, had Père Marquette wished it to stop while Mère Marquette wanted it to continue, she would have put her arms about him and pleaded, "Let it be."
"There shall be fon, mes enfants," whispered the old prophet from Moosejaw.
Slowly, but light footed enough, lifting his great hands still a little higher, Kootanie George came forward. Drennen waited, his lip raised in the bitter snarl which seemed frozen upon his dark face, his grey eyes malevolent. He had fought with many men, he was not afraid to fight; all men there knew that. But they wondered, looking at him and then at the other, if he understood the thing standing unhidden in Kootanie George's eyes.
Yes, he understood. For, just the wee fraction of a second before the Canadian struck, Drennen jerked up his own hands, ready for him. And the two struck at the same instant. There was to be no finesse of boxing; these men had no knowledge of fistic trickery. All that they knew was to fight, to strike hard and straight from the shoulder, opposing strength with strength, swiftness with swiftness, merciless hatred with a hatred as merciless. And so it happened that both blows landed, two little coughing grunts following close upon the impact telling how mightily, and both men reeled back. There was blood upon Drennen's lower lip. The upper was still lifted snarlingly from the red-stained teeth.
Ramon Garcia, watching with an interested smile, nodded his head as though in approval and glanced at Ernestine Dumont upon the table above him. Much of the colour had gone out of her cheeks, leaving them drawn and pallid. Her parted lips too showed the whiteness of her hard set teeth.
"I," meditated Ramon Garcia as his eyes returned to the two men, "I should be less frightened of George than of her. Her eyes are like a devil."
A bare fisted, relentless, give and take fight such as this promised to be is common enough wherever hard men foregather, dirt-common in a country where the fag end of a long winter of enforced idleness leaves restless nerves raw. The uncommon thing about the brief battle or in any way connected with it lay in the attitude of the onlookers. Rarely is a crowd so unanimous both in expectation and desire. George would kill Drennen or would nearly kill him, and it would be a good thing. A man of no friends, Drennen had no sympathiser. No man who watched with narrowed eyes, no woman on table or chair or hiding her face in her hands, but asked and looked for the same ending.
Though from the first it was apparent that George was the bigger man, the heavier, the stronger, it was silently conceded that these qualities though they mean much do not count for everything. It became clear almost as they met for the first blows that the slenderer was quicker and that if Kootanie George was confident Drennen was no less so. And, when they both reeled backward, a many-voiced murmur of surprise was like a reluctant admission: Drennen had done two things which no other man had ever done before him; he had kept his feet against the smashing drive of that big fist in his face and he had made George stagger. For the moment it looked as though the two would fall.
Once more George came forward slowly while Drennen waited for him, again they met, Drennen leaping forward just as the Canadian's sledge of a clenched hand was lifted. Each man threw up a guarding left arm only to have his brawny guard beaten through as again the two resounding blows landed almost like one; this time there was a trickle of red from the Canadian's mouth, a panting, wheezing cough from the American as he received the other's blow full in the chest. For a dizzy moment they stood separated by the very fury of their onslaught, each balancing.
"They are men!" murmured Garcia in delight. And Ernestine, leaning far out from her table, cried breathlessly:
"George! If you love me … "
George glanced at her, a slow smile upon his battered lips. He ran the back of his hand across his mouth and again moved forward, slowly. And again Drennen snarling, awaited him.
This time George crouched a little as he made his attack, and as he drew closer he moved more swiftly, bunching his big muscles, fairly hurling his great body as he leaped and struck, reckless of what blows might find him, determined by his superior weight alone to carry the other back and down. And as though Drennen had read the purpose in the smouldering eyes he too leaped forward so that the two big bodies met in mid air. Like one blow came the sounds of the two blows given and taken as the impact of the two bodies gave out its soft thud. And as one man the two went down together, fighting, beating brutally at each other, all rules of the game forgotten save that one alone which says, "He wins who wins!"
For a little they clenched and rolled upon the floor like two great, grim cats. Through the sound of scuffling came the noise of short-armed jabs, the deep throated curses of Kootanie George and once … his first vocal utterance … one of Dave Drennen's laughs. It was when he had again driven his fist against George's mouth, drawing blood from both lips and hand cut by breaking teeth.
Kootanie George's left arm was flung about the neck of the man at whose body his white knuckled fist was driving like a piston; the American had craned his neck and in order to protect his face held it pressed close to George's breast. Drennen's right arm was about George's body, caught against the floor as they fell, Drennen's left hand with thumb sunken deep was already at the Canadian's throat. The snarl upon Drennen's face was the more marked now, more filled with menace and hate as his body experienced the torture of the other's regular blows.
For a little they were strangely silent, Kootanie having given over his ripping oaths, strangely quiet as they lay with no movement apparent beyond the ceaseless rhythmic striking of George's arm. Even those blows ceased in a moment as George's hand went hurriedly to the wrist at his breast. The thumb at his throat had sunk until the place where it crooked at the joint was lost; George's face from red had gone to white, then to a hectic purple. Now they strove for the mastery of the hand at the throat, George dragging at it mightily, Drennen's fingers crooked like talons with the tendons standing out so that they seemed white cords in the lamplight. George's breath came in short, shorter gasps, he tugged with swelling muscles, his own hand a terrible wrenching vice at Drennen's wrist. And when the purple face grew more hideously purple, when the short gasps were little dry sounds, speaking piteously of agony and suffocation, when still the relentless grip at his throat was unshaken, men began for the first time to guage the strength which lay in the great, gaunt frame of Dave Drennen.
And George too had begun to understand. Suddenly his hand came away from the iron wrist and sought Drennen's throat for which his wide bulging eyes quested frantically. His hand found what it sought at last, but Drennen had twisted his head still a little further to the side, brought his face still lower and closer against the Canadian's chest, and George could not get the grip where he wanted it, full upon the front of the throat. He tore at the rigid muscles below the jaw a moment and the bloody, broken skin of Drennen's neck told with what fury George had striven.
But George must hasten now and he knew it. Again his right hand sought Drennen's left, fought at the deadly grip at his own throat. In his reach a quick cunning came to him and his groping fingers passed along Drennen's wrist and did not tarry there. Up and up they went, the great questing fingers of the Canadian, until at last they found the fingers of the other man. Here they settled. And then those who watched saw the middle finger of Drennen's hand drawn back from the flesh of George's neck, saw it bent back and back, still further back until it was a pure wonder that Drennen held on, back and back. … And then there was a little snap of a bone broken and Drennen's hand fell away and Kootanie George, drawing a long, sobbing breath, rolled clear of him and slowly rose to his feet.
Drennen too rose but not so slowly. His left hand was at his side, the one broken finger standing oddly apart from its fellows, as he ran the three steps to meet Kootanie George. George