Of course we dropped our guns and hastened across the shallow, intervening water, having just time to perceive that Bill had thrown his adversary and remained on top. The first words we heard were: “Take him off! Oh, my God! take him off. Enough, enough, take him off,” from the one on the ground, whose eye--the only vulnerable part to uninstructed anger--Bill was busily endeavoring to gouge out, while the other shouted frantically: “He is killing my brother; let me get to him; he is gouging his eye out. He will kill him, he will kill him.” “Never mind,” answered the athletic man, swinging his arms ominously, and dexterously interposing between the victim and his brother, whenever the latter attempted to dodge past him. “Let him be killed, it would serve him right; he came over here for a fight, and he shall have enough of it if both of his eyes are gouged out.” Elijah arrived in time to prevent the latter catastrophe, and being of a peaceable and humane disposition, pulled off his brother before anything more serious than a little scratching had occurred. In fact, there is no position in which ignorance renders a person more pitiably inefficient, than in fighting; and, while a skilful man could have killed his opponent during the time Bill had enjoyed, the latter had really effected nothing worth mentioning. The ugly wretch was awfully frightened, however; his face being ghostly pale, streaked with bloody red, and he commenced whining at once: “I am nothing but a boy, only twenty-two last spring, and he’s a man grown.” “You know boys have to be whipped to keep them in order,” was the consolatory response; for we naturally took part with our landlord. “Gentlemen, just look at me.” “Don’t come so close, you’re covered with blood; keep back, keep back.” “But look at me; he’s bigger than I am, and I am only a boy.” “Then you shouldn’t strike a man.” “Oh! gentlemen, I didn’t strike him first, indeed I didn’t; he struck me when I wasn’t thinking; indeed he did.” “Yes,” broke in his brother, who was just recovering from the spell first put upon him by our athlete’s continual offers to accommodate him in any way he wished. “Yes, it will be a dear blow for you; I saw you strike him.” “No,” said the lawyer, advancing for the first time from behind the blind where he had been an unmoved and impartial umpire of the fray, “you should not say that; your brother certainly struck first; I saw him distinctly.” His manner was solemn, and convincing, and conclusive, taken in connexion with his perfect equanimity during the affair; but, of course, he was met by contradiction and protestation from the two brothers. This dispute would have been endless, but at that moment a fine flock of willets was descried advancing towards the stools.