It was only a momentary respite which came after we were up. This time I took the initiative, and at once closed with him silently. New strength had come to the smith, and during the next minute I was off my feet more than once, dragged bodily from the ground by his superb might. The spot where we fought was perhaps ten yards across, was almost perfectly flat, and was covered with a sort of granular deposit which prevented us from slipping. Over this narrow area we tugged and strove, sometimes approaching dangerously near the edge, but eventually working back to safer ground. If he had only ceased that brain-racking, heathenish litany! But after a time it came in gasps, and jerks, for despite his marvelous stamina, my enemy began at last to feel the strain. How long we battled upon the peak I do not know, but there came a time when I felt that I had been fighting Buck Steele since the dawn of creation. I was sore from head to foot; dizzy, and growing weak, but I was assured that his case was no better. So, locked like two stags which war to the death, we staggered and sprawled hither and yonder. Then our efforts became automatic, for each had reached the point where he was incapable of intelligent action. Suddenly the moon fell from heaven, straight down to the top of the forest. Then it rebounded back into the sky, and began a series of most erratic movements. At this the glimmer of sense which I yet retained made me grow afraid. I knew that my limit had been reached. Then was projected upon that spark of conscious mentality the picture of my stricken Dryad--and now I laughed! Yea, laughed wildly and mirthlessly, as I slid one arm under the smith's huge hams, and in a resistless access of frenzied power lifted his vast bulk as I would have raised an infant. If he struggled I did not know it, for in that supreme moment a Titan had come to earth. To the flume-like chute I bore him and cast him down it--down to darkness and to hell! * * * * * How I got back to the Lodge I do not know. But as I tottered to the open door, behold! there stood 'Crombie before the fireplace, the Satyr crouched on a box, and sitting near the table was my Dryad! I fell forward at the sight, senseless. * * * * * My wife sits near me reading in the first reader as I pen these final lines of my journal. 'Crombie's presence at the Lodge is easily explained. The time had come for his annual trip to the great north woods, and he determined to run down and surprise me before he left, and see how I was getting along. He drove out from Cedarton, and arrived just as Jeff Angel was leading Celeste up to the Lodge. Buck's club had not struck her. When she saw his intention she had fainted from fright. 'Crombie's coming was opportune, for he has told me I would have died without his ready help. I was in a pretty bad way.