n just as Creech leaped like a panther upon her. His
weight crushed her flat--his strength made her hand-hold like that of a
child. He threw the gun aside. Lucy lay face down, unable to move her
body while he stood over her. Then he struck her, not a stunning blow,
but just the hard rap a cruel rider gives to a horse that wants its own
way. Under that blow Lucy's spirit rose to a height of terrible
passion. Still she did not lose her cunning; the blow increased it.
That blow showed Joel to be crazy. She might outwit a crazy man, where
a man merely wicked might master her.

Creech tried to turn her. Lucy resisted. And she was strong. Resistance
infuriated Creech. He cuffed her sharply. This action only made him
worse. Then with hands like steel claws he tore away her blouse.

The shock of his hands on her bare flesh momentarily weakened Lucy, and
Creech dragged at her until she lay seemingly helpless before him.

And Lucy saw that at the sight of her like this something had come
between Joel Creech's mad motives and their execution. Once he had
loved her--desired her. He looked vague. He stroked her shoulder. His
strange eyes softened, then blazed with a different light. Lucy divined
that she was lost unless she could recall his insane fury. She must
begin that terrible fight in which now the best she could hope for was
to make him kill her quickly.

Swift and vicious as a cat she fastened her teeth in his arm. She bit
deep and held on. Creech howled like a dog. He beat her. He jerked and
wrestled. Then he lifted her, and the swing of her body tore the flesh
loose from his arm and broke her hold. Lucy half rose, crawled, plunged
for the gun. She got it, too, only to have Creech kick it out of her
hand. The pain of that brutal kick was severe, but when he cut her
across the bare back with the rope she shrieked out. Supple and quick,
she leaped up and ran. In vain! With a few bounds he had her again,
tripped her up. Lucy fell over the dead body of the father. Yet even
that did not shake her desperate nerve. All the ferocity of a
desert-bred savage culminated in her, fighting for death.

Creech leaned down, swinging the coiled rope. He meant to do more than
lash her with it. Lucy's hands flashed up, closed tight in his long
hair. Then with a bellow he jerked up and lifted her sheer off the
ground. There was an instant in which Lucy felt herself swung and torn;
she saw everything as a whirling blur; she felt an agony in