and then sank to the
ground as two of the brown warriors sprang upon him with naked parangs.
An instant later Virginia Maxon saw the hideous and grisly head
swinging high in the hand of a dancing, whooping savage.

The man who carried her was now forced to turn and fight off the enemy
that pressed forward past Number Twelve. The mighty bull whip whirled
and cracked across the heads and faces of the Dyaks. It was a
formidable weapon when backed by the Herculean muscles that rolled and
shifted beneath Bulan's sun-tanned skin, and many were the brown
warriors that went down beneath its cruel lash.

Virginia could see that the creature who bore her was not deformed of
body, but she shrank from the thought of what a sight of his face might
reveal. How much longer the two could fight off the horde at their
heels the girl could not guess; and as a matter of fact she was
indifferent to the outcome of the strange, running battle that was
being waged with herself as the victor's spoil.

The country now was becoming rougher and more open. The flight seemed
to be leading into a range of low hills, where the jungle grew less
dense, and the way rocky and rugged. They had entered a narrow canyon
when Number Twelve went down beneath a half dozen parangs. Again the
girl saw a bloody head swung on high and heard the fierce, wild chorus
of exulting victory. She wondered how long it would be ere the
creature beneath her would add his share to the grim trophies of the
hunt.

In the interval that the head hunters had paused to sever Number
Twelve's head, Bulan had gained fifty yards upon them, and then, of a
sudden, he came to a sheer wall rising straight across the narrow trail
he had been following. Ahead there was no way--a cat could scarce have
scaled that formidable barrier--but to the right he discerned what
appeared to be a steep and winding pathway up the canyon's side, and
with a bound he clambered along it to where it surmounted the rocky
wall.

There he turned, winded, to await the oncoming foe. Here was a spot
where a single man might defy an army, and Bulan had been quick to see
the natural advantages of it. He placed the girl upon her feet behind
a protruding shoulder of the canyon's wall which rose to a considerable
distance still above them. Then he turned to face the mob that was
surging up the narrow pathway toward him.

At his feet lay an accumulation of broken rock from the hillside above,
and as a spe