Seeing Elias and Rhoda busy with David's hand after the thirteenth round, Shillabeer whispered that the enemy's left was gone; but he erred as the sequel proved. Bowden had only cut himself on Bartley's teeth.
Fogo, however, still felt satisfied, because it seemed clear that even if Crocker could not finish his task, he would be able to stay until Bowden went blind. David's right eye had long since closed and the left was beginning to vanish. Another blow would probably complete the work of obliteration and leave Crocker with victory. Both men's faces were much swollen and disfigured, but both were still game and both were cheerful. Bartley, however, began to get slow and his ear was causing him much dizziness. It had swollen to horrible dimensions.
Snow now fell briskly and the ring had become very slippery.
The sixteenth bout found David busiest. He rushed in right and left, and a good ding-dong round was fought in which advantage only came to Bartley at the end. Then, after receiving some heavy body-blows, he got on to Bowden's lip, split it and drenched the man's face with blood. In the close they both went down, David, as usual, undermost. Both were carried to their corners and both were weak.
In the next round David tried to upper-cut Crocker, but missed, and was knocked down by a blow on the throat.
Elias asked his son if all was well with him, and David nodded. Rhoda gave him the brandy bottle and he rinsed his mouth, but did not drink any. Fogo did all that his knowledge suggested for Bartley, but knew that he was growing weak very rapidly. It remained to be seen whether Crocker's strength or David's eyesight would last longest.
In the eighteenth round Bartley began the fighting and with immense impetuosity dashed in right and left on the face. He tried for the eye, but just missed it and caught heavily on the body. And then fortune smiled in earnest on David, and as the other came again to finish his enemy at any cost, Bowden caught him with crushing force on the left cheek. Chance timed the blow to perfection. It was by far the heaviest hit in the fight, and the effect at this juncture proved terrific. The tremendous blow seemed to go all over the side of Crocker's face. It brought the blood gushing from his mouth and nose; and it dropped him in a heap.
A shout of consternation rose from the younger man's friends, and Mr. Fogo and Shillabeer picked up Bartley, while David, cheered by the yells of his supporters, walked, with Rhoda guiding him, to his corner. It was now the turn of the Bowdens to wait the call of time with anxiety; but Fogo got his man to the scratch, though all fight was out of him. David could still see but he had lost the power of calculating distances. He struck thrice in the air; then he hit Crocker, where he stood dazed with his hands down, and dropped him.
The crisis had come and Mr. Fogo kept back Bartley till the last available moment, while on the other side Rhoda led David to the scratch, for he could no longer see it. A blow now was likely to settle the matter; but the one man was too weak to strike, the other too blind to make sure of hitting. Two more rounds were fought in this manner and Fogo fancied that Bartley had a little recovered from the effects of his terrible punishment; but the return of strength did not serve him. In the twenty-second and final round Bowden--fortune still smiling--hit Crocker heavily with a round arm on the ear and the younger man fell unconscious. Fogo and Shillabeer picked him up and did what they could, but Bartley knew nothing. His head had swollen in an extraordinary manner from the smashing stroke in the eighteenth round, and it was that blow which had put 'paid' to his account. David walked to the scratch with Rhoda's help and waited to hear time called. He had, it seemed, snatched victory at the last moment and now it was his battle as surely as it had been Bartley's after the ninth round. The referee cried 'time,' the eight seconds crawled past, and 'Frosty-face,' with a word not to be chronicled, threw up the sponge. Bartley Crocker was deaf to the call. Indeed, he remained unconscious for another five minutes.
The fight had lasted about three quarters of an hour.