Bob had done a great deal of boxing and considerable wrestling.  During his boyhood and youth he had even become involved in several fisticuffs.  They had always been with the boys or young men of his own ideas.  Though conducted in anger they retained still a certain remnant of convention.  No matter how much you wanted to “do” the other fellow, you tried to accomplish that result by hitting cleanly, or by wrestling him to a point where you could “punch his face in.”  The object was to hurt your opponent until he had had enough, until he was willing to quit, until he had been thoroughly impressed with the fact that he was punished.  But this result was to be accomplished with the fists.  If your opponent seized a club, or a stone, or tried to kick, that very act indicated his defeat.  He had had enough, and that was one way of acknowledging your superiority.  So strongly ingrained had this instinct of the fight-convention become that even now Bob unconsciously was playing according to the rules of the game.

Roaring Dick, on the contrary, was out solely for results.  He fought with every resource at his command.  Bob was slow to realize this, slow to arouse himself beyond the point of calculated defence.  His whole training on the field inclined him to keep cool and to play, whatever the game, from a reasoning standpoint.  He was young, strong and practised; but he was not roused above the normal.  And, as many rivermen had good reason to know, the normal man availed little against Roaring Dick’s maniacal rushes.

The men were close-locked, and tugging and straining for an advantage.  Bob crouched lower and lower with a well-defined notion of getting a twist on his opponent.  For an instant he partially freed one side.  Like lightning Roaring Dick delivered a fierce straight kick at his groin.  The blow missed its aim, but Bob felt the long, sharp spikes tearing the flesh of his thigh.  Sheer surprise relaxed his muscles for the fraction of an instant.  Roaring Dick lowered his head, rammed it into Bob’s chin, and at the same time reached for the young man’s gullet with both hands.  Bob tore his head out of reach in the nick of time.  As they closed again Roaring Dick’s right hand was free.  Bob felt the riverman’s thumb fumbling for his eyeball.

“Why, he wants to cripple me, to kill me!” the young man cried to himself.  So vivid was the astonishment of this revelation to his sportsman’s soul that he believed he had said it aloud.  This was no mere fight, it was a combat.  In modern civilized conditions combats are notably few and far between.  It is difficult for the average man to come to a realization that he must in any circumstances depend on himself for the preservation of his life.  Even to the last moment the victim of the real melodrama that occasionally breaks out in the most unlikely places is likely to be more concerned with his outraged dignity than with his peril.  That thumb, feeling eagerly for his eye-socket, woke Bob to a new world.  A swift anger rushed over him like a hot wave.