ended my fight.

Doubtless some reminiscence in that voice caused my mind to carry on the
struggle in the second after sense had fled, for I thought we still were
in the snow wrestling, only it was inside a mimic fort in the clearing
around Mr. Stewart's old log-house, and I was a little boy in an apron,
and my antagonist was a yellow-haired lad with hard fists, with which he
beat me cruelly in the face--and so off into utter blackness and void
of oblivion.

One morning in the latter half of January, nearly three weeks after, I
woke to consciousness again. Wholly innocent of the lapse of time, I
seemed to be just awakening from the dream of the snow fort, and of my
boyish fight with little Philip Cross. I smiled to myself as I thought of
it, but even while I smiled the vague shadows of later happenings came
over my mind. Little by little the outlines of that rough December night
took shape in my puzzled wits.

I had been wounded, evidently, and had been borne back to Holland House,
for I recognized the room in which I lay. My right arm was in stiff
splints; with the other hand I felt of my head and discovered that my hair
had been cut close, and that my skull and face were fairly thatched with
crossing strips of bandage. My chest, too, was girdled by similar
medicated bands. My mental faculties moved very sedately, it seemed, and I
had been pondering these phenomena for a long time when my cousin Dr.
Teunis Van Hoorn came tip-toeing into the room.

This worthy young man was sincerely delighted to find me come by my
senses once more. In his joy he allowed me to talk and to listen more than
was for my good, probably, for I had some bad days immediately following;