"Well," said Tomlinson, "we'll fix all that. Now, light out of this. You don't want the circus right in front of the shanty."
The lad made a little gesture of comprehension as he swung round, and Tomlinson gravely walked after him until they could no longer be seen from the shanty. Then Probyn turned to him again.
"We're far enough, I think," he said.
He stood, strung up, but apparently impassive, with his left arm across him and his right hand clenched at his side, and only a suggestion of watchfulness in his steady eyes. Tomlinson smiled grimly.
"If I were to hit you hard I'd kill you, sure. I'm raised to-day," he said. "I guess a souse in the creek will have to do instead."
Probyn saw that the issue must be faced, and he was by no means deficient in courage, or he would not have ridden long with the Northwest Police. Stepping forward, with a thrust from his right foot, he feinted with his left hand at the miner's face, and then, swinging downwards with lowered head, got in a right-hand body blow that would probably have staggered another man. Tomlinson, however, took it with no more than a gasp, and flinging out his right hand closed with him, which was singularly unfortunate for Trooper Probyn. He had been accounted tolerably proficient with the gloves in another land, but it is not for pastime that men fight in the wilderness, and there the disablement of one's opponent by any means available is the object of the game.
Probyn had the pride which breeds courage and endurance, as well as vigour; but he had not swung the axe and shovel for twenty years, as Tomlinson had done, in the strenuous, unceasing grapple with unsubdued Nature which hardens every muscle and sinew in the men of the Northwest. They have the pride of manhood in place of the pride of birth, and a grim optimism which chiefly finds expression in attempting that which is apparently beyond accomplishment, and in holding on, in spite of frost and snow and icy gale, until achievement comes. Thus it came about that in a very few seconds Trooper Probyn recognized that he was no match for the miner, though he had no intention of admitting it or of being put into the creek if he could by any means avoid it.
For several strenuous minutes they reeled, locked together, about the trail, and fell against the trees, while neither of them concerned himself greatly about the strict rules of the game. They smote when it was possible and clinched when they could; but all the time they were drawing steadily nearer the creek.
In the meanwhile Leger and Ingleby, as well as one or two miners who purposed purchasing bread from Hetty, came out from among the pines, and a corporal of police rode up on the opposite side of the creek. The miners, who did not notice him, naturally stopped.
"It's that young ass Probyn," said Ingleby. "No doubt he deserves all he is apparently getting."