Below them in
the darkness the yellow flood poured in noisy volume. As Langham knew,
here the stream was at its deepest and its current the swiftest. He knew
also that his chance had come; but he dared not make use of it. The
breath whistled from his lips and the moisture came from every pore. He
sought frantically to nerve himself for the supreme moment; but suppose
he slipped, or suppose Joe became aware of his purpose one second too
soon!

"Keep over a bit, boss!" said the handy-man suddenly. "You are crowding
me off the bridge!"

"Oh, all right; is that better?"

And Langham moved a step aside.

"A whole lot," responded Joe gruffly. But his little blue eyes, alert
with cunning, were never withdrawn from the lawyer for an instant.

They walked forward in silence for a moment or two, and were approaching
the end of the center span, when the lawyer glanced about him wildly; he
realized that he was letting slip his one great opportunity. Again Joe
spoke:

"Keep over, boss!" And then all in the same breath, "What the hell are
you up to, anyway?"

It must be now or it would be never; and Langham, turning swiftly,
hurled himself on his companion, and his slim fingers with their
death-like chill gripped Joe's hairy throat. In the suddenness of the
attack he was forced toward the edge of the bridge. The rush of the
noisy waters sounded with fearful distinctness in his ears.

"Here, damn you, let go!" panted Montgomery.

[Illustration: "Here, let go!" panted Montgomery.]

He felt Langham's hot breath on his cheek, he read murder by the wolfish
light in his eyes. He wrenched himself free of the other's desperate
clutch, but as he did so his foot caught against one of the rails and he
slipped and fell to his knees. In the intervals of his own labored
breathing, he heard the flow of the river, a dull ceaseless roar, and
saw the flashing silver of the moon's rays as they touched the water's
turgid surface. Langham no longer sought to force him from the bridge,
but bent every effort to thrust him down between the ties to a swift and
certain death.

"You want to kill me, too!" panted Montgomery, as by a mighty effort
that brought the veins on neck and forehead to the point of bursting, he
regained his footing on the ties.

But his antagonist was grimly silent, and Joe, roused to action by fear,
and by a sullen rage at what he deemed the lawyer's perfidy, turned and
grappled with him. Once he smashed his great fist