Hitting the line

by Ralph Henry Barbour

“Apologize?” demanded Monty grimly as the water poured in about his knees.

“No, you—you dirty Yank!”

“Yank, eh! I’ll Yank you, you—” But Monty’s powers of invention were handicapped, and he gave his thought and strength to tearing loose the grip of his opponent. It dawned on him then that there could be just one climax to the struggle, and he found time to grin before, the skiff tiring of the unusual task required of it, he slid gently forward into the river!

Fortunately, perhaps, there was a depth of only some three feet just there. Monty, still clasping his adversary, and still clasped, went sputtering and gurgling to the bottom, or, at least, as near the bottom as the body of the other, which happened to be underneath, would permit. The taste of the water suggested that they had disturbed the muddy sediment, and Monty was all for getting back to air again. But no such idea seemed to possess the other, for the death-like grip still held, and for a fraction of a second Monty had a horrid vision of drowning! Then, however, he found his knees, and, at last, his feet, and, with the other boy still clinging to him, managed to stand up.

“Had—had enough?” he gasped chokingly.

There was no verbal reply, but the adversary’s actions plainly intimated that he hadn’t, for, once out of the water, he began beating a clenched fist into the back of Monty’s head, the only point he could reach. Monty pushed his head as far out of the way of punishment as possible, and, floundering about in the water, slowly worked his right hand up under the boy’s chin. No one can stand the agony of having the head pushed back for long, and gradually the boy’s grasp loosened until, with a sudden effort, Monty wrested himself free, at the same instant straightening his right arm. His opponent staggered back, tried to recover, failed and disappeared.

Monty awaited his reappearance, smiling grimly. The humor of the thing struck him then, and the smile became a laugh, and the laugh broke out just as the other boy came out of the water again. With a rush he returned to the fray, his hands aiming blows at Monty’s face, which the latter had difficulty in avoiding, and which caused him to give back toward the bank. He was watching for an opportunity to close in, but the other afforded him none. A staggering left to Monty’s cheek sent him reeling on the rotting debris under foot, and he brought up against the branches of an alder, and then, losing foothold, sat down on the bank.

“Get up!” sputtered the other. “I’m just started!”

Monty was dimly conscious of a small clearing a few yards to the left, and concluded that he had had quite enough of aquatic battling. Hurling himself on the other, receiving a blow on the face that jarred but didn’t stop him, he got his arms around his adversary’s body, heaved, and staggered with his struggling, infuriated burden through the shallow water, and reached the bank. But to climb out was beyond him, and in the effort he fell and they rolled apart. Each got to his feet quickly, panting, ready. There was a little light in the small clearing, enough for each to see for the first time the features of the other, and, while they paused, as though by mutual consent to recover breath, they made use of the opportunity.

Monty saw a tall, lithe, well-built boy of possibly seventeen, with very dark hair—probably black, although he couldn’t be certain of that—big dark eyes in an oval face, a determined-looking mouth, a nose that was a trifle aquiline, and a chin that was at once pointed and strong. Monty’s first verdict was: “Great Snakes, he’s a good-looking hombre!” Then he added: “A regular dude, though!” The boy’s attire was, in fact, almost too picturesque, although his immersion had left it somewhat bedraggled. His dark head was bare—perhaps he had worn a hat and lost it, as Monty had—a negligee shirt of some pale tint that in the present uncertain light might have been blue or pink or lavender clung to his body beneath a well-cut jacket of some dark-gray material, his neck was encircled by a soft collar which now lay like a twisted rag, a flowing tie hung wet and stringy from beneath it, there was a belt at the waist and a metal buckle gleamed in the half-light, and his costume was completed by dripping white flannel trousers and discolored white buckskin shoes. Before the encounter, reflected Monty, he must have been a thing of beauty!