Then did those doughty giants close and grapple together in the wrestle for life and death. The red giant had the advantage in height, if not in weight; the black giant in strength of muscle, if not in suppleness of limbs. Again, though not so good a wrestler, the red was better breathed, while the black, though fighting in a better cause, had not yet eaten his breakfast. So, when we come to weigh them fairly, it will be found that the advantages which each had over the other made the chances of war about nip and tuck between the black and the red. Pushing and pulling, writhing and tugging and twisting, round and round with whirl and fling they went--now over the logs, now into the bushes, then driving right through the fire, and scattering the smoldering embers broadcast over the ground, and everywhere plowing up great furrows with their heels in the mellow soil. To the negro, with his prodigious strength of arm, it was an easy matter to toss up the Indian from the ground; but when he would essay to fetch the final fling, the nimble savage, let his legs be ever so high in the air and wide apart, was always sure to bring the very foot down to the very place to stay his fall, though as quickly to jerk it up again, to shun the leveling sweep of those enormous black feet, so persistently making at his ankles. The combat had waged for many seconds without any decided advantage gained on either side, when, chancing to glance over Black Thunder's shoulder, Burl spied a new danger threatening him from quite an unexpected quarter.