“Wiry devil.”
“Good shoulders.”
“Great fighting face, eh?”
“Scrapper, all right.”
“I’ll bet he is.”
“Shake hands!”
Stover caught the other’s hand, looked into his eyes, read something there that told him, science aside, that he was the other’s master; and suddenly, rushing forward, he caught him about the knees and, lifting him bodily in the air, hurled him through the circle in a terrific tackle.
The onslaught was so sudden that Fisher, unable to guard himself, went down with a crash, the fall broken by the bodies of the spectators.
A roar, half laughter, half hysteria, went up.
“Go for him!”
“Good boy, Stover!”
“Chew him up!”
“Is he a scrapper!”
“Say, this is a fight!”
“Wow!”
Dana, clapping them on the shoulders, brought them back to the center of the ring and restored them to the position in which they had fallen. Fisher, plainly shaken up, immediately worked himself into a defensive position, recovering his breath, while Stover frantically sought some instinctive hold with which to turn him over.
Suddenly an arm shot out, caught his head in chancery, and before he knew it he was underneath and the weight of Fisher’s body was above, pressing him down. He staggered to his feet in a fury, maddened, unreasoning, and went down again, always with the dead weight above him.
“Here, that won’t do,” he said to himself savagely, recovering his clarity of vision; “I mustn’t lose strength.”
All at once, before he knew how it had been done, Fisher’s arm was under his, cutting over his neck, and slowly but irresistibly his shoulders were turning toward the fatal touch. Everyone was up, shouting:
“Turn him over!”
“Finish him up!”
“Hold out, freshman!”
“Hold out!”
“Flop over!”
“Don’t give in!”
“Stick it out!”
With a sudden expenditure of strength, he checked the turning movement, desperately striving against the cruel hold.
“Good boy, Stover!”
“That’s the stuff!”
“Show your grit!”
“Hold out!”
“Show your nerve!”
In a second he had reasoned it out. He was caught—he knew it. He could resist three minutes, five minutes, slowly sinking against his ebbing strength, frantically cheered for a spectacular resistance—and then what? If he had a chance, it was in preserving every ounce of his strength for the coming rounds.
“All right; you’ve got me this time,” he said coldly, and, relaxing, let his shoulders drop.
Dana’s hand fell stingingly on him, announcing the fall. He rose amid an angry chorus:
“What the deuce!”
“Say, I don’t stand for that!”
“Thought he was game.”
“Game nothing!”
“Lost his nerve.”
“Sure he did.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
“A quitter—a rank quitter!”
He walked to his seconds, angry at the misunderstanding.
“Here, I know what I’m doing,” he said in short, quick breaths, forgetting that he, a freshman, was addressing the lords of creation. He was a captain again, his own captain, conducting his own battle. “I’ll get him yet. Rub up this shoulder, quick.”
“Keep off the ground,” said one mentor.
“You bet I will.”
“Why the deuce did you give in so easily?”
“Because there are two more rounds, and I’m going to use my head—hang it!”
“He’s right, too,” said the first senior, rubbing him fiercely with the towel. “Now, sport, don’t monkey with him until you’ve jarred him up a couple of times!”
“That’s what I’m going to do!”
“Time!” cried the voice of Dana.
This time he retreated slowly, drawing Fisher unwarily toward his edge of the ring, and then suddenly, as the sophomore lunged at him, shot forward again, in a tackle just below the waist, raised him clear off the ground, spun him around, and, putting all his force into his back as a wood-chopper swings an ax, brought him down crashing, clear across the ring. It was a fearful tackle, executed with every savage ounce of rage within him, the force of which momentarily stunned him. Fisher, groggy under the bruising impact, barely had time to turn on his stomach before Stover was upon him.
Dink immediately sprang up and back, waiting in the center of the ring. The sophomore, too dazed to reason clearly, yielding only to his anger at the sudden reversal, foolishly struggled to his feet and came staggering toward him. A second time Stover threw all his dynamic strength into another crashing tackle. This time Fisher went over on his back with a thump, and, though he turned instinctively, both shoulders had landed squarely on the turf, and, despite his frantic protests, a roar went up as Dana allotted the fall to Stover.
This time, as he went to his corner, it was amid pandemonium:
“You’re a corker, freshman!”
“Oh, you bulldog!”
“Tear him up!”
“You’re the stuff!”
“Good head, freshman!”
“Good brain-work!”
Several upper classmen came hurriedly over to his corner, slapping him on the back, volunteering advice.
“Clear out,” said his mentor proudly. “This rooster can take care of himself.”
Fisher came up for the third round, visibly groggy and shaken by the force of the tackles he had received, but game. Twice Stover, watching his chance, dove under the groping hands and flung him savagely to the ground. Once Fisher caught him, as they lay on the ground, in a hold that might have been decisive earlier in the match. As it was, Stover felt with a swift horror the arm slipping under his arm, half gripping his neck. The wet heat of the antagonistic body over his inflamed all the brute in him. The strength was now his. He tore himself free, scrambled to his feet, and hurled Fisher a last time clean through into the scattering crowd, where he lay stunned, too weak to resist the viselike hands that forced his shoulders to the
