“Si had the punch to push his dukes through the side of a plank fence,” a local enthusiast described it afterward. “But young Forge hit him three times and run around him twice while Si was makin’ up his mind where he’d hit once.”
Back and forth across the enclosure the two youths struggled, upsetting boxes, knocking down hides, tripping on yard refuse, falling backward into the circle of wildly applauding spectators. Great pile-driver blows the larger fellow smashed at his lighter opponent. Nathan’s counter-attack was swift and rapier-keen, taking the other by surprise, getting inside his defenses, smashing his nose, closing his eyes, lacerating his lips, but always lacking the bodily weight to strike the other down or finish him off with a knock-out.
There is something vitally fine and fair in an American crowd. It wants to see the under dog get the best of it. Nathan, because of his slenderness, was the under dog. Si sensed that the moral support of the tanners was not with him. He grew Germanically furious.
The moral support of his fellow workers meant little to Nathan, however. He had to finish Plumb or be finished himself. And those who, through that summer, had called Nat a mollycoddle because he was finer grained than themselves, were swift and fair in revising their opinion and giving the stripling all the credit his proven prowess deserved.
The two came together in clinches only to break away when one saw an opening for a telling blow. Twice they both went down. The battle each time turned into a wrestling match, with any sort of a “hold” permitted,—biting, eye-gouging and hair-tearing being eminently permissible so long as it brought results.
At a quarter to one the fight had started. Fifteen minutes later it was still going strong,—arms and faces of both combatants bleeding, shirts ripped to ribbons, lungs bursting. The employees paid no attention to the tannery whistle for the reason that no tannery whistle was blown. The engineer and fireman were enthusiastically howling in the front row of spectators. The absence of the whistle was responsible for bringing Caleb Gridley down into the yard. But the old war-horse of the local leather business was immediately too interested himself to interfere or start his factory. He stood with a fierce, hard joy in his eye, awaiting the finish.
That finish came at ten minutes after one. Silas, worsted but unconquered, picked up a piece of board and swung it terribly for Nathan’s head. A howl of protest arose, then approval as Nathan dodged. But Nathan had not dodged far enough nor soon enough. The board ripped his left ear from the side of his head. Silas followed in, raising one of his big boots to kick his opponent below the belt. By accident more than design, Nathan tripped him. As Silas went down, Nathan sent a left jab to his jaw. It rocked the roughneck’s head. He sagged, grinned, pitched downward on his forehead, and went peacefully off to hear little birds sing sweetly.
The fight was finished. Likewise both participants. For Nathan saw his man prostrate, took three steps and crumpled—senseless.
Old Caleb pushed forward. “Take the kid to the office,” he ordered curtly. Grim satisfaction lay on his paving-block jaw. “As for that low-brow, leave him lie busted. I stand for the man that fights fair!”
They carried the unconscious Nathan to tannery headquarters. Doctor Johnson was summoned by telephone. Nat was losing alarming quantities of blood from the ragged ear and more was trickling out between his teeth. First aid was administered, but it was a sickening business.