It was a question of mere brute strength, and neither of us had had the advantage of surprise.  I could feel the sharp prick of my own knife as he hugged me to him, but I dare not reach for it, and I held his arms so tightly that he lay panting and struggling as if in a vise.  It was an odd fight, as we turned and tossed, writhed and twisted among those sharp pointed rocks like two infuriated wild-cats in the dark, neither venturing to break hold for a blow, nor having breath enough in our bodies for so much as a curse.  My adversary struck me once with his head under the chin, so hard a blow that everything turned red before me; and then I got my knee up into the pit of his stomach and caused him to quiver from the agony of it; yet the fellow clung to me like a bull-terrier, and never so much as whined.

It was never my nature to yield easily, and I felt now this struggle was to cost his life or mine; so I clinched my teeth, and sought my best to push back the other’s head until the neck should crack.  But if I was a powerful man, this other was no less so, and he fought with a fierce and silent desperation that foiled me.  We dug and tore, gouged and struck, digging our heels into the soft earth in a vain endeavor to gain some advantage of position.  My cheek, I knew, was bleeding from contact with a jagged stone, and I was fast growing faint from the awful tension, when I felt his arms slip.

“My God!” he panted.  “The devil has me!”

So startled was I by these English words, that I loosed my grip, staring breathlessly through the darkness.

“Are you white?” I gasped, so weakened I could scarce articulate.

For a moment he did not answer, but I could hear his breath coming in gasps and sobs.  Then he spoke slowly, his voice hoarse from exertion.

“By the memory of Moses!  I was once,—­but that squeeze must have turned me black, I ‘m thinkin’.  An’ ye’re no Injun?”

“Not so much as a feather of one,” I retorted.  “But that is what I took you to be.”

We were both sitting up by this time, he with his back against the bank, both of us panting as if we could never regain our breath, and eagerly seeking to see each other’s features in the gloom.  Any attempt at conversation was painful, but I managed at last to stammer: 

“You must be a whalebone man, or I ’d have broken every rib in your body.”

“An’ I ’m not a bit sure ye did n’t,” was the response, uttered between puffs. “‘T was the worst grip ever Ol’ Tom Burns had squeeze him,—­an’ I ‘ve felt o’ bars mor’ nor oncet.  Who may ye be, anyhow, stranger? an’ for what cause did ye jump down yere on me?”

There was a trace of growing anger in his tone, as remembrance of the outrage returned to his mind, which caused me to smile, now that I could breathe less painfully.  It seemed such a ludicrous affair,—­that dark struggle, each mistaking the purpose and color of the other.