let out a wild yip as he saw Nada raise her
stick. But she was a moment too slow. The man's hand caught it, and his
right hand shot forward and buried itself in the thick, soft mass of
her hair.

It was then that something broke loose in Peter. For this day, this
hour, this minute the gods of destiny had given him birth. All things
in the world were blotted out for him except one--the six inches of
naked shank between the bootlegger's trouser-leg and his shoe. He dove
in. His white teeth, sharp as stiletto-points, sank into it. And a wild
and terrible yell came from Jed Hawkins as he loosed the girl's hair.
Peter heard the yell, and his teeth sank deeper in the flesh of the
first thing he had ever hated. It was the girl, more than Peter, who
realized the horror of what followed. The man bent down and his
powerful fingers closed round Peter's scrawny neck, and Peter felt his
wind suddenly shut off, and his mouth opened. Then Jed Hawkins drew
back the arm that held him, as he would have drawn it back to fling a
stone.

With a scream the girl tore at him as his arm straightened out, and
Peter went hurtling through the air. Her stick struck him fiercely
across the face, and in that same moment there was a sickening,
crushing thud as Peter's loosely-jointed little body struck against the
face of the great rock. When Nada turned Peter was groveling in the
sand, his hips and back broken down, but his bright eyes were on her,
and without a whimper or a whine he was struggling to drag himself
toward her. Only Jolly Roger could tell the story of how Peter's mother
had died for a woman, and in this moment it must have been that her
spirit entered into Peter's soul, for the pain of his terrible hurt was
forgotten in his desire to drag himself back to the feet of the girl,
and die facing her enemy--the man. He did not know that he was dragging
his broken body only an inch at a time through the sand. But the girl
saw the terrible truth, and with a cry of agony which all of Hawkin's
torture could not have wrung from her she ran to him, and fell upon her
knees, and gathered him tenderly in her arms. Then, in a flash, she was
on her feet, facing Jed Hawkins like a little demon.

"For that--I'll kill you!" she panted. "I will. I'll kill you!"

The blow of her stick had half blinded the bootlegger's one eye, but he
was coming toward her. Swift as a bird Nada turned and ran, and as the
man's footsteps crunched in the gravel and rock b