I gave ground before Clark, as I tried to find an opening. I soon discovered, however, that this was not a fight where one could wait for openings. Openings had to be made, and made quickly. I threw caution to the winds. I drew myself together and rushed at him as he had rushed at me. His blow slanted off my left shoulder, numbing my arm to the finger-tips. Mine got home on a more vital place: it caught him sheer on the top of the head. I thought, for sure, I had smashed his skull. But no such luck; Joe Clark's bones were too stoutly made and knit. He gasped and staggered back against a tree for a second, looking dazed as he wiped a flow of blood from his face. "For God's sake, man," I shouted, "let us quit this." He laughed derisively. "The hell you say! Quit,--nothin'; not till one of us quits for keeps." He rallied and came at me once more, but with greater wariness than previously. He poked at me and jabbed at me. I warded him off, keeping on the move all the time. He swung sideways on me, but I parried easily; then, with a fierce oath, he caught his club with both hands, raised it high in the air and brought it down with all his sledge-hammer strength. This time, I was ready for Joe Clark. I was strong. Oh!--I knew just how strong I was, and I gloried in my possession. I had a firmer grip of my cudgel than before. There was going to be no breaking through as he had done last time; not if George Bremner's right arm was as good as he thought it was. I met that terrific crash at the place I knew would tell. With the crack of a gun-shot, his club shivered into a dozen splinters against mine, leaving him with nothing but a few inches of wood in his torn hands. He stood irresolute. "Will you quit now?" I cried. But he was game. "Not on your life," he shouted back. "We ain't started yet. Try your damnedest." He tossed aside the remainder of his club and jumped at me with his great hands groping. I stepped back and threw my stick deliberately far into the forest, then I stopped and met him with his own weapons. After all, I was now on a more equal footing with him than I had been when both of us were armed. We clinched, and locked together. We turned, and twisted, and struggled. He had the advantage over me in weight and sheer brute strength, but I had him shaded when it came to knowing how to use the strength I possessed. We smashed at each other with our fists wherever and whenever we found an opening. Our clothes were soon in ribbons. Blood spurted from us as it would from stuck pigs. Gasping for breath with roaring sounds,--choking,--half-blind, we staggered and swayed, smashing into trees and over bushes. At last I missed my footing and stumbled over a protruding log, falling backward. Still riveted together,--Joe Clark came with me. The back of my head struck, with a sickening crash, into a tree and I knew no more.