"You'll not have to whip all
of us. You'll have to whip my son Johnnie. An' the man what troubles
you durin' that time will have me to dale with."
The arrangements were swiftly made. The two men faced each other,
obedient to the harsh commands of Scully, whose face, in the subtly
luminous gloom, could be seen set in the austere impersonal lines that
are pictured on the countenances of the Roman veterans. The
Easterner's teeth were chattering, and he was hopping up and down like
a mechanical toy. The cowboy stood rock-like.
The contestants had not stripped off any clothing. Each was in his
ordinary attire. Their fists were up, and they eyed each other in a
calm that had the elements of leonine cruelty in it.
During this pause, the Easterner's mind, like a film, took lasting
impressions of three men- the iron-nerved master of the ceremony;
the Swede, pale, motionless, terrible; and Johnnie, serene yet
ferocious, brutish yet heroic. The entire prelude had in it a
tragedy greater than the tragedy of action, and this aspect was
accentuated by the long mellow cry of the blizzard, as it sped the
tumbling and wailing flakes into the black abyss of the south.
"Now!" said Scully.
The two combatants leaped forward and crashed together like
bullocks. There was heard the cushioned sound of blows, and of a curse
squeezing out from between the tight teeth of one.
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