His last item of information was lost to all but Lomax, who was nearest him. They were all at close quarters now, and the tussle began in earnest. As luck had it, the four keepers and Griff's three allies were well to one side when the fight was fairly started. Griff was aware of a big, rough-hewn man fronting him; his face showed knotty in the moonlight, and he laughed a great, hearty laugh from his belly upwards. It was the Squire of Saxilton. "You've no gun!" cried old Roger Daneholme. "No; but I've got the fists that God gave me. Drop your gun, and come on." The Squire chucked his weapon into the bracken, and they ran together like steel to magnet. In and out darted the blows; Roger Daneholme took a crack on the mouth that rattled his teeth in their sockets, and Griff lost the aid of his left eye for the time being. It was neck or nothing with Griff. In among the stress, he found time to wonder how he could have been fool enough to mix himself up with a poaching affray, now that Kate had made things matter so much more; it was all very well in his bachelor days, but he should have had more sense now. Suppose he were collared and run in, along with these jolly boon companions of his? He pondered a trifle too long on that aspect of the case, for the Squire got in a body-blow, that came dangerously near to taking his adversary's wind. All the while the tussle of four against four was running a brisk course on the left; curses and blows thwacked through the frosty air with cheery impartiality; but Jack o' Ling Crag was laughing, and Griff gathered that the three were having the best of it--though his notions of everything outside the radius of the Squire's fists were of necessity in the shadowy background of his mind. At last Griff got his chance, and took it. Old Roger again aimed a bit too high for his wind, and he responded with a clean-cut drive from his left that got the Squire full between the eyes, planting him squarely in the bracken. He showed no disposition to come up to scratch again, and Griff looked to see if he were needed elsewhere. But the keepers had had the worst of the tussle; they had been driven back towards the wood-bottom, and the poachers four were making the best of their way towards Wynyates. Jack o' Ling Crag stopped at the top of the wood to see how it fared with Lomax; the others were well ahead of him, and did not notice the stoppage, their guiding rule on these occasions being to take a bee-line for home. And somehow it fell about that Jack, the old reprobate, grew so keen on the mighty battle going on below him that he forgot all about his own safety. The keepers rallied, just as Griff put in his farewell smack at his opponent; two went to tackle Lomax, and two made up the hill towards Jack o' Ling Crag. "Come on!" shouted Jack. "Run for your life, ye fool! What are ye stopping for?"