The night air swept over him with a sudden chill as the sweaters were pulled away. He went forth while Dana ran over the rules and regulations, which he did not understand at all. He stood then about five feet ten, in perfect condition, every muscle clearly outlined against the wiry, spare Yankee frame, shoulders and the sinews of his arms extraordinarily developed. From the moment he had stepped out, his eyes had never left Fisher's. Combat transformed his features, sending all the color from his face, narrowing the eyes, and drawing tense the lips. Combat was with him always an overmastering rage in the leash of a cold, nervous, pulsating logic, which by the very force of its passion gave to his expression an almost dispassionate cruelty--a look not easy to meet, that somehow, on the instant, impressed itself on the crowd with the terrific seriousness of the will behind. "Wiry devil." "Good shoulders." "Great fighting face, eh?" "Scrapper, all right." "I'll bet he is." "Shake hands!" Stover caught the other's hand, looked into his eyes, read something there that told him, science aside, that he was the other's master; and suddenly, rushing forward, he caught him about the knees and, lifting him bodily in the air, hurled him through the circle in a terrific tackle. The onslaught was so sudden that Fisher, unable to guard himself, went down with a crash, the fall broken by the bodies of the spectators. A roar, half laughter, half hysteria, went up. "Go for him!" "Good boy, Stover!" "Chew him up!" "Is he a scrapper!" "Say, this _is_ a fight!" "Wow!" Dana, clapping them on the shoulders, brought them back to the center of the ring and restored them to the position in which they had fallen. Fisher, plainly shaken up, immediately worked himself into a defensive position, recovering his breath, while Stover frantically sought some instinctive hold with which to turn him over. Suddenly an arm shot out, caught his head in chancery, and before he knew it he was underneath and the weight of Fisher's body was above, pressing him down. He staggered to his feet in a fury, maddened, unreasoning, and went down again, always with the dead weight above him. "Here, that won't do," he said to himself savagely, recovering his clarity of vision; "I mustn't lose strength." All at once, before he knew how it had been done, Fisher's arm was under his, cutting over his neck, and slowly but irresistibly his shoulders were turning toward the fatal touch. Every one was up, shouting: "Turn him over!" "Finish him up!" "Hold out, freshman!" "Hold out!" "Flop over!" "Don't give in!" "Stick it out!" With a sudden expenditure of strength, he checked the turning movement, desperately striving against the cruel hold. "Good boy, Stover!" "That's the stuff!" "Show your grit!" "Hold out!" "Show your nerve!"