Mike was promptly at his mate’s back.  ‘Stave him off, Jim,’ he said.  ’Use your straight left, and if he gets in throw him.  He’s a dirty in-fighter.’  Mike had boxed a good deal with Done lately, and did not tremble for his friend.

Kyley came forward again.  It was no part of his duty to prevent an honourable settlement of a quarrel between man and man, and very far from his inclination.

‘If yer meanin’ fight,’ he said, it’s got to be fair, square, an’ in order.  First man that fouls ‘ll hear from me.  Are you ready?’

The men had formed themselves into ranks along the sides and the end of the tent, leaving a clear space about eighteen feet square.  Jim threw aside his shirt, and stood erect and composed.  The flannel he wore was sleeveless, and his uncommon length of arm excited the attention of the cognoscenti, and if there was a miner on Diamond Gully who did not know the points of a fighter, he was ashamed to admit it.  Done had done most of the windlass work since coming to the field, and his forearm was corrugated with muscle, while the flexors responded to movements like balls of iron starting under the brown skin.  His shoulders were broad and set well back, his poise buoyant, and his air of absolute confidence gave a dubious tone to the words of the quidnuncs who were allowing Quigley three minutes to whip him out of all recognition.  Done looked slight and small before his big opponent, but Pete’s bigness was due largely to surplus material, and Pete had been anything but a temperate man of late.  Jim recollected this in calculating his chances and determining his methods.

‘Time!’ cried Kyley.

Done took his ground easily, with his left arm well up, and his right in for defence, a style so unusual at that date as to provide a little derision amongst the onlookers.  Mike, standing with his arms outspread and his shoulders to the crowd, keeping the ring, smiled complacently.  Pete, confident in his height, weight, and strength, was determined to make a short, hot fight of it, and went straight at Jim, both hands up, and launched his right for the young man’s face with terrific force.  This must have been a decisive blow had Jim’s face remained there to receive it, but Done ducked neatly, and the next moment his left was shot into Quigley’s cheek, sending the big man staggering, and raising a purple wheal under the eye almost instantly.  Pete’s composure forsook him at the first set back, and uttering a furious oath he rushed in again, swinging both fists; but that shooting left hand met him full in the mouth, and balked him again, his own sledge-hammer blows falling short of his opponent.  He pushed in recklessly, punching right and left, but Jim dodged smartly, slipped under his arm, and jumped to the other end of the ring.  Quigley swung round and dashed at him, and once more Done’s hard left shot into his face, while the heavy blow of the giant was neatly parried, and again Jim bewildered his man by ducking and slipping from him.