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126 about in a strange sort of silence. Only the beating of arms and legs, the hammering of hard fists, to tell that the two writhing bodies were endowed with purpose and grim earnestness. Then, at last, there was Turk Wilson squatting in his old familiar way, this time on top of a man who lay still under Turk's big, hard hands, while Turk's red rimmed eyes sought Steele.

"Go to it, Bill," cried Turk encouragingly. "I got ol' Pete all sewed up fine. You get Tom now …"

Steele, under a terrific blow, had gone reeling backward, down the slope, saved from falling only by the tree whose trunk his labouring shoulders struck. And Steele, with a twisted sort of laugh from battered lips, was shouting:

"Good shot, old boy. Nearly got me that trip!" Turk tightened his grip warningly upon the throat under him.

"Lay still, can't you, Pete? " he demanded angrily. "Look at that man Steele! He's laughin'! Laughin', I tell you. An' … Attaboy! Attaboy, Bill! Give him hell!" For Tom Hardy had leaped forward, charging down hill upon Steele, and Steele had sprung to one side and whipped about and struck out and in the twinkling of an eye Hardy was lower down on the slope, Steele above and, in turn, charging downward. And while Turk chuckled and grasped Pete's throat, urging him to watch, oblivious of the fact that all that Pete could see was the insect life in the grass, the fight on the slope was ended. For Steele, seeing his chance, had hurled his body through the air upon Tom Hardy's,