Part 41 (1/2)

Scarcely fifty yards above him was the camp of his enemies! There were two tepees and piles of saddles and panniers and blankets about them, but not a soul that he could see And then, suddenly, there rose a voice belloith rage, and he recognized it as Quade's It came from beyond the tepee, and he rose quickly from where he had thrown himself and ran forward, with the tepee between him and those on the other side Close to the canvas he dropped on his knees and crawled out behind a pile of saddles and panniers

From here he could see

So near that he could alround, with their backs toward him Their hands were tied behind them Their feet were bound with pannier ropes A dozen paces beyond theh

The two h's face hite, a deadly white, and he was s-coat pocket There was a sneering challenge on his lips; in his eyes was a look that Aldous knew reat red beast ready to spring His eyes seereat hands were knotted; his shoulders were hunched forward, and his mottled face was ablaze with passion In that lanced about swiftly

The men from the mountain had not returned He was alone with Quade and Mortih spoke, very quietly, a little laughingly; but his voice tre-coat pocket

”You're excited, Billy,” he said ”I'm not a liar, as you've very i you dirt, and I haven't fallen in love with the lady s to me, body and soul If you don't believe me--why, ask the lady herself, Billy!”

As he spoke, he turned his sneering eyes for the fraction of a second toward Joanne The movement was fatal Quade was upon hi itself upward, there followed a muffled report, but the bullet fleide In all his life Aldous had never heard a sound like the roar that cah's hand appear with a pistol in it, and then the pistol was gone He did not see where it went to He gripped his knife and waited, his heart beating hat seemed like smothered explosions as he watched for the opportunity which he kneould soon coe bulk Instead of that, a small, iron fist shot upward and Quade's head went back as if broken fro a step backward, and in the e of a pack-saddle He stumbled, almost fell, and before he could recover hi in the red brute's hand It rose and fell once--and Morti cry, swayed for a second or two on his feet, and fell to the ground Quade turned In his hand was a bloody knife Madness and passion and the triulared at his helpless prey As Aldous crouched lower his shoulder touched one of the saddles It slipped from the pile, one of the panniers followed it, and Quade saw hier reason for conceal forth into the space between hiely from her lips but he did not turn his head He advanced upon Quade, his head lowered, the long skinning-knife glea in his hand

John Aldous knew that words would avail nothing in these last few minutes between him and Quade The latter had already hunched himself forward, the red knife in his hand poised at his waistline He was terrible His huge bulk, his red face and bull neck, his eyes popping fro blade in the shapeless hulk of his hand gave hioyle instead of a thing of flesh and blood And Aldous was terrible to look at, but in a way that wrung acry from Joanne His face was livid from the beat of the rocks; it was crusted with blood; his eyes were partly closed, and what remained of his shi+rt was drenched with blood that still ran from the deep cuts in his arms and shoulders But it was he who advanced, and Quade who stood and waited

Aldous knew little or nothing of knife-fighting; and he realized, also, that there was a strange weakness in his arms and body caused by his battle with the reat deal with the Indians of the north, who fought as their half-wolf sledgedogs fought, and he ean to circle around Quade, so that Quade became the pivot of that circle, and as he circled he drew nearer and nearer to his eneed inward, with his knife-arlare of his eyes discomfited Quade, who suddenly took a step backward

It was alhen the Indian made this step that his opponent darted in; and Aldous, with this into the attack Their knives clashed in ht against Quade, darted sidewise, and with a terrific lunge brought the blade of his knife down between Quade's shoulders A straight blade would have gone froh muscle and sinew, but the knife which Aldous held scarcely pierced the other's clothes

Not until then did he fully realize the tre-knife would not penetrate! His one hope was to cut with it He flung out his arm before Quade had fully recovered, and blind luck carried the keen edge of the knife across his enemy's pouchy cheek The blood came in a spurt, and with a terrible cry Quade leaped back toward the pile of saddles and panniers Before Aldous could follow his advantage the other had dropped his knife and had snatched up a four-foot length of a tepee pole For a moment he hesitated while the blood ran in a hot flood down his thick neck Then with a bellow of rage he rushed upon Aldous

It was no tith descended upon hiathered himself for the shock He had alreadythe rocks of the chasone He was panting fro And he knew that Quade was no longer a reasoning thing He had ceased to think He was blind with the passion of the brute, and his one thought was to crush his enee hands Aldous waited He heard Joanne's terrified scream when Quade was almost upon him--when less than five feet separated the hiht for the other's feet The club crashed over hiripped Quade at the knees With a trerip of his hands For a moment he was stunned, and in that moment Aldous was at his throat

He would have sold the best of his life for the skinning-knife But he had lost it in gripping Quade And now he choked--with every ounce of strength in him he choked at the thick red neck of his enemy Quade's hands reached for his own throat They found it And both choked, lying there gasping and covered with blood! while Joanne struggled vainly to free herself, and screa from her lips And John Aldous knew that at last the end had coth in his are craers, while the clutch at his own throat was turning the world black His grip relaxed His hands fell limp The last that he realized was that Quade was over hi

Then it was, as he lay within a final second or two of death, no longer conscious of physical attack or of Joanne's terrible cries, that a strange and unforeseen thing occurred Beyond the tepee a ered toward theest cry of all came now For theand stuhters--froe back he poised himself The knife rose; for the fraction of a second it treht inches of steel went to the heart of Quade

And as DeBar turned and staggered toward Joanne and Marie, John Aldous was sinking deeper and deeper into a black and abysht in which he was drifting, light as a feather floating on the wind, John Aldous experienced neither pain nor very , he see, All was dead in him but that last consciousness, which is al, and ht have passed in that dreah the blackness; and then so He could hear nothing There was a vast silence about him, a silence as deep and as unbroken as the abys

After a tiently on the billows of a sea This was the first thought that took shape in his struggling brain--he was at sea; he was on a shi+p in the heart of a black night, and he was alone He tried to call out, but his tongue see tie day Little needles of light pricked his eyes; silver strings shot like flashes of weblike lightning through the darkness, and after that he saw for an instant a strange glare It was gone in one big, powderlike flash, and he was in night again These days and nights seerew less dark, and the days brighter He was conscious of sounds and buffetings, and it was very hot

Out of this heat there ca his face, and eyes, and head It was like the touch of a spirit hand It became more and more real to him It caressed him into a dark and cohter day roused him

His brain see over theain, and it was not a cloud, but a hand! The handinto a pair of wide-open, staring, prayerful eyes, and a little cry came to hi again, but now he knew that he was alive He heardnearer and more distinct He tried to cry out Joanne's na breath between his lips But Joanne heard; and he heard her calling to hi him to open his eyes, to speak to her It seemed many minutes before he could do this, but at last he succeeded And this time his vision was not so blurred He could see plainly Joanne was there, hovering over hireat bearded face of Donald MacDonald And then, before words had for He smiled

”O my God, I thank Thee!” he heard Joanne cry out, and then she was on her knees, and her face was against his, and she was sobbing

He knew that it was MacDonald who drew her away

The great head bent over him