at a time.
Wider and wider became his vision. There was no trail ahead. The
outlaw and his captive were behind the rock!

With his rifle now full to his shoulder Rod stepped boldly forth and
whirled to the left. Twenty feet away, almost entirely concealed among
the tumbled masses of boulders, was a small cabin. About it there were
no signs of life with the exception of a thin wreath of smoke rising
like a ghostly spiral up the side of the chasm wall; from it there
came no sound. Rod's index finger quivered on the trigger of his
rifle. Should he wait--until the outlaw came forth? Half a minute he
stood there, a minute, two minutes, and still he heard nothing, saw
nothing. He advanced a step, then another, and still another, until
he saw the open door of the cabin. And as he stood there, his rifle
leveled, there came to him a faint, sobbing cry, a cry that reached
out and caught him like a strong hand and brought him in a single
desperate leap to the door itself.

Inside the cabin was Minnetaki, alone! She was crouched upon the
floor, her beautiful hair tumbling in disheveled masses over her
shoulders and into her lap, her face, as white as death, staring
wildly at the youth who had appeared like an apparition before her.

In an instant Rod was at her side, upon his knees. For that brief
moment he had lost his caution, and only a terrible cry from the girl
turned him back again, half upon his feet, to the door. Standing
there, about to spring upon him, was one of the most terrifying
figures he had ever seen. In a flash he saw the huge form of an
Indian, a terrible face, the gleam of an uplifted knife. In such a
crisis one's actions are involuntary, machine-like, as if life itself,
hovering by a thread, protects itself in its own manner without
thought or reasoning on the part of the human creature it animates.
Rod neither thought nor reasoned; without any motive on his own part,
he flung himself face downward upon the cabin floor. And the move
saved him. With a guttural cry the savage leaped toward him, struck
out with his knife and missed, stumbled over the boy's prostrate form
and fell beside him.

Months of hardship and adventure in the wilderness had made Rod as
lithe as a forest cat, his muscles like steel. Without rising he flung
himself upon his enemy, his own knife raised in gleaming death above
the savage's breast. But the Woonga was as quick. Like a flash he
struck up with one of his powerful arms and the f