As it was, in point of sheer strength, the two were about evenly matched, but there was a difference in their resources.

One was gymnasium-trained, the other not.
In country wrestling there are the side-hold, and square-hold, and back-hold, and rough-and-tumble, the last the catch-as-catch-can of stage struggles.

In early boyhood Harlson had learned the tricks of these, and in the college gymnasium he had supplemented this wisdom by persistent training in every device of the professional gladiators.

He was there considered something better than the common.

And this, though a life depended on it, was but a wrestling-match.