Dad saw a choice assortment of stars, but he held his grip, dogged, tense, unyielding in spite of the dizzy nausea that the head blow had caused him. The Confederate, on the contrary, cried out in sharp pain, and Dad, with a grim thrill of joy, knew why. The fist, crashing with all its force on Dad’s skull, had met the same fate as has many a pugilist’s in landing a blow in the same inauspicious spot. Two of the Confederate’s fingers were broken by the jarring impact, and his wrist was badly sprained. Dad, instinctively seeking to protect his own face, had resorted, without intent, to a favorite street-fight maneuver; by opposing his head-crown to a blow instead of his jaw. Hundreds of hands have been broken or otherwise put out of commission by that simple ruse. The Confederate’s left hand being helpless, Dad shifted his own right from the man’s throat to the sword wrist. A heaving wrench of both hands and the saber flew from the captain’s back-twisted arm. Jimmy (who, during the second or two that had elapsed since Dad and the Confederate had so unexpectedly shifted their rôles of captor and captive, had stared fascinated at the fray) now jumped forward with a whoop and snatched up the fallen saber. “Where’ll I give it to him, Dad?” he yelled exultantly. “Not to hurt him much, but to make him let up on you.” “Keep out of this!” panted Dad. He could not, now, use his sword with honor, and it would hamper him. Leaping back he unbuckled belt and all, flung them in Jimmy’s direction, and closed again. Disregarding the broken hand, the Confederate threw both arms about the old man in a right-unloving embrace, and the two crashed to earth. Over and over they rolled; the Confederate pounding and struggling like mad; Dad seeking merely to gain the upper hand. Jimmy danced about them, saber threateningly poised, shouting: “Surrender, you! Surrender or I’ll stick this sword into you!” He could not have carried out his threat, even had he so chosen. For the two men on the ground were so inextricably snarled together and were writhing and pummeling and shifting their relative positions with such suddenness, that the boy could not possibly attack one of them without an equal chance of injuring the other. Presently they were on their feet, and Dad secured the hold he had been groping for. By use of a simple old wrestling trick known to athletes of those days as “bustling the bridge,” he whirled his foe fully a yard in air and brought him down breathless on his back with a thump that half-stunned the fallen man. As he fell Dad heard the shoulder bone crack. Dad wasted no time. Kneeling on the Confederate’s forearms, he called to Jimmy: “Son! That paper? Is it where I dropped it? The one I was reading when--” “Lemme help you hold him down, Dad!” pleaded the boy, unhearing. “Maybe he’ll--”