“Why, you damned, impudacious varmint! I’ll persuade you that I’m pluck and grit united in one individual. My gizzard’s so all-fired hot that I’m fixing to breathe fireballs! I will double you up like a spare shirt—twist you into the shape of a corkscrew—and chaw you as small as cut tobacco.”

“Crockett,” Neuendorf muttered in reply, “you talk too damn much.” Even as he spoke these words, his right hand was inching towards the handle of a long-bladed dagger hanging from the side of his belt in a faded leather scabbard. All at once—in a movement swift as thought—he plucked the knife from its sheath, and—grasping it by the very tip of its blade—raised it high above his head and flung it through the air directly at Crockett’s bosom.

So great was the dexterity with which this projectile was thrown, and so deadly the intent, that it would surely have pierced the very heart of the frontiersman, had he not—with a rapidity quite as remarkable as that with which the weapon was hurled—dropped into a crouching position. Even so, the revolving blade passed alarmingly close to his body, missing his left shoulder by mere inches before burying itself in the tree trunk against which he had rested his firearm.

Eyes flashing, Crockett sprang from his crouch and threw himself at Neuendorf, driving his head into the midsection of his brutish adversary, who expelled a loud, agonized grunt as the enraged frontiersman fell upon him like a panther. Rolling upon the ground, the two combatants began to punch—bite—gouge—and kick—with such extreme, such uncontained fury that a cloud of dust rose up around them and obscured their struggling figures. The very earth seemed to shudder from the force of their battle, and the stillness of the forest was shattered by the savage oaths that issued from their throats as they fought.

In the meanwhile, Neuendorf’s two associates leapt into action, the bushy-browed shoveller snatching up his implement; while his toothless companion—after glancing about for a suitable weapon—seized a large, gnarled branch that lay on the grass nearby. Raising these objects above their heads, these two miscreants arranged themselves on either side of the grappling pair, their evident intention being to deal the frontiersman a deadly blow with their makeshift clubs. This nefarious plan, however, could not immediately be put into action, since the two combatants were so completely intertwined that it was impossible to strike at Crockett without risking a lethal blow to Neuendorf.