tly matching her strength against his.
Finding this hopeless and feeling his hand gradually slipping toward the
revolver, she suddenly raised her hand toward her face, bringing Yuma's
hand, still on her arm, with it. Then she dropped her head to his arm
near the wrist, and sank her teeth savagely into the flesh.

Yuma howled in anguish, loosening his hold momentarily. In an instant
she had wrenched herself free and had bounded to the center of the room,
placing the kitchen table between herself and her assailant.

But he was after her with a bound, his little eyes gleaming with a
venomous expression, his face contorted with passion. She raised the
revolver and fired. For a breathless instant she thought that she had
hit him, for he sank almost to the floor. But she saw that it was only a
trick for he was up again on the instant, a mocking smile on his face
and closer than ever. She fired again, and when she saw him sink to the
floor she pulled the trigger a second time. He had been very close to
the table when she fired the last time and before she could press the
trigger again he had lurched forward under it, raising it on his
shoulders and sending it crashing down behind him as he confronted her,
his evil face close to hers, his hands again gripping her arms.

She fought him silently, and together they reeled around the cabin. She
bit him again, and then in an outburst of savage fury he brutally
twisted the arm in which she still held the revolver, sending the weapon
crashing to the floor. While twisting her arm he had been compelled to
loosen his grasp of the other slightly, and she again wrenched herself
free and darted toward the door leading to the porch. But he bounded
forward, intercepting her, and with a last, despairing effort she raised
both hands to his face and clawed furiously at his eyes.

She heard a savage curse from him, saw the lust of murder in his little,
glittering eyes, felt his sinewy fingers at her throat. Then objects
within the cabin swam in a dizzy, blurring circle before her. She heard
a crash--seeming to come from a great distance; heard Yuma curse again.
And then, borne resistlessly forward by the weight of his body, she
tumbled to the floor in an inert heap.

CHAPTER XXII

PROOF OF GRATITUDE

Shortly after noon on the same day Hollis, finding work irksome, closed
his desk with a bang, told Potter that he was going home, mounted his
pony, and loped the animal out the Dry Bot