Seeing my companion outnumbered by a ratio of three to one, I felt desperate to assist him by some means. Without the use of my hands, however, I was powerless to remove myself from the hole. All at once, a solution occurred to me. Leaning the upper part of my back against one wall of the excavation, I raised my feet, one at a time, and pressed the soles against the opposite wall. I thus found myself suspended several feet above—and approximately parallel to—the bottom of the grave. Very slowly and cautiously, I then proceeded—by an alternating, precisely coordinated movement of my shoulders and feet—to inch myself up the sides of the excavation until I had reached the surface; whereupon, with one firm, decisive thrust of my legs, I propelled myself out of the excavation and onto the ground!

Struggling to my feet, I quickly took stock of the situation. By dint of his unparalleled fighting skills, the frontiersman had by now achieved a superior position, kneeling above the supine figure of his opponent and delivering a succession of blows to the villain’s face. Crockett’s ascendancy, however, had placed him in an exceptionally vulnerable situation, exposing him to the murderous designs of Neuendorf’s henchmen. Indeed, at that very moment, the shovel-wielding villain was standing directly above the frontiersman, poised to bring his implement crashing down upon the latter’s skull!

I parted my lips, intending to shout a warning. Before I could produce a sound, however, Crockett—evincing an instinctive, almost preternatural alertness and agility—flung himself away from the body of his opponent and rolled to one side, just as the shovel descended. At that instant, Neuendorf groggily raised his head. Completely missing its intended target, the heavy blade struck Neuendorf on the left temple with a sickening thud.

Bounding to his feet, Crockett sprang at the shovel-wielding henchman and—drawing back his tightly balled right hand—delivered a staggering blow to the scoundrel’s jaw. Dropping his implement, the villain let out a quivering moan and fell crossways over Neuendorf’s unconscious body.

At that instant, the second of Neuendorf’s minions leapt to the attack. Wielding the gnarled branch like an aborigine’s warclub, he charged madly at Crockett, who stooped—snatched up the fallen shovel—and, as the enraged attacker came at him with a roar—drove the rounded end of the wooden handle into the latter’s abdomen. With an agonized expulsion of breath, the ruffian doubled over at the waist; whereupon Crockett elevated the shovel high over his head and, in one savage, sweeping motion, brought the edge of the blade crashing down upon his antagonists neck, causing the cervical vertebrae to break with an awful—an appalling—snap. As heavily as an overstaffed sack of feed, the toothless villain dropped lifelessly to the ground.