Father Roland was parrying
his straight blows like an adept. Three times in as many minutes he felt
the sting of the Missioner's glove in his face. In straight-away boxing,
without the finer tricks and artifice of the game, he was soon convinced
that the forest man was almost his match. Little by little he began to
exert the cleverness of his training. At the end of ten minutes Father
Roland was sitting dazedly in the snow, and the grin had gone from
Mukoki's face. He had succumbed to a trick--a swift side step, a feint
that had held in it an ambush, and the seat of the Little Missioner's
faculties had rocked. But he was gurgling joyously when he rose to his
feet, and with one arm he hugged David as they returned to the cabin.
"Only one other man has given me a jolt like that in many a year," he
boasted, a bit proudly. "And that was Tavish. Tavish is good. He must
have lived long among fighting men. Perhaps that is why I think so
kindly of him. I love a fighting man if he fights honourably with either
brain or brawn, even more than I despise a coward."
"And yet this Tavish, you say, is pursued by a great fear. Can he be so
much of a fighting man, in the way you mean, and still live in terror
of....
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