in his hands,
plunging toward him, blind and deaf, maddened and purple-faced with
rage.

They were almost face to face when they saw one another.

There was no time to think of weapons, no time to think at all. They
sprang at one another with a cry that was old when man invented the
cleft-stick stone ax. There is a note of joy in that cry as well as
that of rage. Roger leaped primitively to grapple and break his enemy
with bare hands. Garman tossed his rifle away and came on intent upon
the same purpose.

They clinched; and the moment Roger felt those vast soft hands
tightening upon him the shock brought back to him a sort of reason.
Garman was the stronger. His right hand caught Roger's clenched fist
within an inch of his chin, and his gorilla grip held the fist
helpless. His huge hand encased Roger's fist as one might hold a
baseball; and slowly, surely, gloatingly he bent the arm.

Garman was the stronger. This was the thought which now monopolized
Roger's mind. By natural law Garman would be the victor in this
primitive struggle; and considering the man and the circumstances,
Roger had no illusions as to what this would mean to him. So far as
his own entity was concerned the mental picture of himself as Garman's
victim did not disturb him greatly; he had lost all that man may hope
for in life; no fear came into his heart as he realized how much Garman
was his physical superior.

An impulse to throw himself madly upon his opponent regardless of
consequences followed the picture; but with a sudden determination he
controlled it. A few wild, reckless spasms and he knew the fight would
be over. Once those terrible hands, with their fat, suctionlike palms,
found a vital hold they would not let go; and Garman was an experienced
fighter, and wild fighting would soon present him the opportunity which
he would see and seize.

Roger placed himself wholly upon the defensive, and while he skillfully
resisted Garman's efforts to end the struggle at once, he fought with
himself a struggle for calm reason.

He could not win. That was the basis from which he began to reason.
Garman was the stronger man, so much stronger that against him Roger's
powerful young body thrust as against the trunk of an immovable tree.
For a moment the pair had held motionless, Garman's bulk and might held
for the instant by Roger's impetuous rush, but now the Plunderer's
strength was telling and he was slowly thrusting his victim b