Slowly and stealthily Teddy glided toward the man, until he arose almost to the standing position, not more than a foot distant.  Then slowly spreading out his arms, so as to inclose the form of the stalwart woodsman, he brought them together like a vise, giving utterance at the same time to an exultant “whoop.”

“Yer days of thramping this country, and alarming paceable inhabitants are done wid, Mister Anaconda.  So jist kaal over gracefully, say tin Ave Marias, and consider yourself in the hands of Gabriel sint for judgment.”

All this time Teddy had been straining and hugging at the hunter as if determined to crush him, while he, in turn, had taken it very coolly, and now spoke in his gruff bass voice: 

“Let go!”

“Let go!  Well now, that’s impudint, ye varlet.  As if Teddy McFadden would let go hook and line, bob and sinker, whin he had got hold of a sturgeon.  Be aisy now; I’ll squaze the gizzard and liver iv ye togither, if ye doesn’t yield gracefully.”

“Let go, I say!  Do you hear?”.

“Yis, I hears, and that is the extint—­”

Teddy’s next sensation was as if a thunderbolt had burst beneath his feet, for he was hurled headlong full half a rod over the head of the hunter.  Though considerably bruised, he was not stunned by the fall, and quickly recovered.  Scratching his head, he cried: 

“Begorrah, but yees can’t repate that trick!” making a rush toward his antagonist, who stood calmly awaiting his onset.

“By heavens, I’ll give you something different then!” said the man, as he caught him bodily in his arms, and running to the edge of the river, flung him sprawling into it.  The water was deep, and it required considerable struggling to reach the shore.

This last prodigious exhibition of strength inspired the Irishman with a sort of respect for the stranger.  Teddy had found very few men, even among frontiersmen and Indians, who could compete with him in a hand-to-hand struggle; yet, there was now no question but what he was overmatched, and he could but admire, in a degree, the man who so easily handled his assailant.  It was useless to attack the enemy after such a repulse; so he quietly seated himself upon the shore.

“Would ye have the kindness, ye assassinating disciple of the crowner’s jury, whin yees have jist shown how nately ye can dishpose of a man like meself, to tell me why it was you run so mighty harrd whin I took once before after yees?  Why didn’t ye pause, and sarve me then jist as ye have done?  I’d jist like to know that before we go any further wid this matter.”

“It wasn’t because I feared you!” said the hunter, turning sullenly away, and walking into the wood.

“Farewell!” called out Teddy, waving his hand toward him.  “Ye’re a beauty, and yees have quite taking ways wid ye; but it wouldn’t be safe for me to find yees lurking about the cabin, if I had a rifle in me hand.  You’d have trouble to fling a bullet off as ye flung me.  Be jabers, but wasn’t that a nate thing, to be sure.  I’ll bet a thousand pounds which I niver had, that that fellow could draw the Mississippi up-stream if he was fairly hitched on to it.  Ah, Teddy, you ain’t much, afther all,” he added, looking dolefully at his wet garments.