Something jagged crushed against Mormon's temple. It seemed as if the skull split open and a jagged, red-hot probe searched through his brain. He threw up his head in agony, his chin exposed, but instinct still awake to fling out both hands, catch the oncoming blow, his fingers clamping deep about the wrist above the hand that held the rock—some ore fragment tossed away by an old-timer—that Russell had found in the dirt, and used in unfair, murderous intent.
The maddening pain of first impact died to a throb as the blood poured down, seeming to leave his brain clear, cold with a rage that responded to a deep disgust of the bully who was now at his mercy. For, with the rage came absolute conviction that this was the end of the fight.
He screwed unmercifully, flesh and sinews and the small bones of the wrist, until Russell shrieked through his swollen mouth at the anguish of it and dropped the rock. Pardee, hovering near, seeing all, picked it up and slipped it into his pocket as Mormon pinned down Russell's arm with his left knee and swung left and right in sledge-hammer blows to the jaw of the face that tried in vain to dodge the knockout. As if a galvanic current that had simulated life had suddenly been shut off, Roaring Russell's body lost all energy, it seemed to flatten, lay without a quiver.
Mormon got on his feet and stood to one side while Pardee counted off the seconds that were only a grim parody. Russell's brain was short-circuited. There was not even a tremor of his eyelids. Pardee knelt, felt pulse and heart. Then he beckoned to the loser's seconds.
"Come and get your man," he told them. "He's through for this evening."
Pandemonium broke loose as the crowd broke formation and surged down. Four men packed off Roaring Russell, limp and sagging between them. Pardee exhibited the chunk of ore, stained with Mormon's blood, while Sandy, Sam and Westlake ramparted Mormon from enthusiastic admirers and pushed down to the creek where he washed his hurts with the stinging icy water and stiffly put on his clothes.
"Knew he was licked and figured he might get away with it," declared Pardee. "Lucky it didn't split his head open." Murmurs gathered force against the bully's methods.
"Cut out the lynching talk, boys," cried Pardee. "The man's been beaten up. I wouldn't wonder if his jaw was bu'sted. His nose is. Let him go; we'll see that he leaves the camp as soon as he can hobble." He broke through to Mormon, being assisted into his coat by Sandy. "How are you standing up, old bearcat?" asked the referee. "I thought he had you nipped once but you walloped him."
"Me? I'm jest about standin' up, an' that's all," said Mormon, gingerly feeling certain places on his face. "I sure thought it was my brains oozin' when he swiped me with that rock. But my bone's pritty solid in the head, I reckon. I don't mind tellin' you-all I'm feelin' a good deal like a bass drum at the end of a long parade, but I believe it's all on the outside. And I ain't entered for any beauty show—at present."
"Eleven minutes of straight fighting by the watch," said a man.