McTeague was stalking about, swelling with pride.

“Hoh, you’re down.  I threw you.  Didn’t I throw him, Trina?  Hoh, you can’t rastle me.”

Marcus capered with rage.

“You didn’t! you didn’t! you didn’t! and you can’t!  You got to give me another try.”

The other men came crowding up.  Everybody was talking at once.

“He’s right.”

“You didn’t throw him.”

“Both his shoulders at the same time.”

Trina clapped and waved her hand at McTeague from where she stood on the little slope of lawn above the wrestlers.  Marcus broke through the group, shaking all over with excitement and rage.

“I tell you that ain’t the way to rastle.  You’ve got to throw a man so’s his shoulders touch.  You got to give me another bout.”

“That’s straight,” put in Heise, “both his shoulders down at the same time.  Try it again.  You and Schouler have another try.”

McTeague was bewildered by so much simultaneous talk.  He could not make out what it was all about.  Could he have offended Marcus again?

“What?  What?  Huh?  What is it?” he exclaimed in perplexity, looking from one to the other.

“Come on, you must rastle me again,” shouted Marcus.

“Sure, sure,” cried the dentist.  “I’ll rastle you again.  I’ll rastle everybody,” he cried, suddenly struck with an idea.  Trina looked on in some apprehension.

“Mark gets so mad,” she said, half aloud.

“Yes,” admitted Selina.  “Mister Schouler’s got an awful quick temper, but he ain’t afraid of anything.”

“All ready!” shouted Ryer.

This time Marcus was more careful.  Twice, as McTeague rushed at him, he slipped cleverly away.  But as the dentist came in a third time, with his head bowed, Marcus, raising himself to his full height, caught him with both arms around the neck.  The dentist gripped at him and rent away the sleeve of his shirt.  There was a great laugh.

“Keep your shirt on,” cried Mrs. Ryer.

The two men were grappling at each other wildly.  The party could hear them panting and grunting as they labored and struggled.  Their boots tore up great clods of turf.  Suddenly they came to the ground with a tremendous shock.  But even as they were in the act of falling, Marcus, like a very eel, writhed in the dentist’s clasp and fell upon his side.  McTeague crashed down upon him like the collapse of a felled ox.

“Now, you gotta turn him on his back,” shouted Heise to the dentist.  “He ain’t down if you don’t.”

With his huge salient chin digging into Marcus’s shoulder, the dentist heaved and tugged.  His face was flaming, his huge shock of yellow hair fell over his forehead, matted with sweat.  Marcus began to yield despite his frantic efforts.  One shoulder was down, now the other began to go; gradually, gradually it was forced over.  The little audience held its breath in the suspense of the moment.  Selina broke the silence, calling out shrilly: