rocks of the chasm
had broken and beaten him until his strength was gone. He was panting from
his first onset with Quade, but his brain was working. And he knew that
Quade was no longer a reasoning thing. He had ceased to think. He was blind
with the passion of the brute, and his one thought was to crush his enemy
down under the weight of the club in his huge hands. Aldous waited. He
heard Joanne's terrified scream when Quade was almost upon him--when less
than five feet separated them. The club was descending when he flung
himself forward, straight for the other's feet. The club crashed over him,
and with what strength he had he gripped Quade at the knees. With a
tremendous thud Quade came to earth. The club broke from the grip of his
hands. For a moment he was stunned, and in that moment Aldous was at his
throat.

He would have sold the best of his life for the skinning-knife. But he had
lost it in gripping Quade. And now he choked--with every ounce of strength
in him he choked at the thick red neck of his enemy. Quade's hands reached
for his own throat. They found it. And both choked, lying there gasping and
covered with blood! while Joanne struggled vainly to free herself, and
scream after scream rang from her lips. And John Aldous knew that at last
the end had come. For there was no longer strength in his arms, and there
was something that was like a strange cramp in his fingers, while the
clutch at his own throat was turning the world black. His grip relaxed. His
hands fell limp. The last that he realized was that Quade was over him, and
that he must be dying.

Then it was, as he lay within a final second or two of death, no longer
conscious of physical attack or of Joanne's terrible cries, that a strange
and unforeseen thing occurred. Beyond the tepee a man had risen from the
earth. He staggered toward them, and it was from Marie that the wildest and
strangest cry of all came now. For the man was Joe DeBar! In his hand he
held a knife. Swaying and stumbling he came to the fighters--from behind.
Quade did not see him, and over Quade's huge back he poised himself. The
knife rose; for the fraction of a second it trembled in midair. Then it
descended, and eight inches of steel went to the heart of Quade.

And as DeBar turned and staggered toward Joanne and Marie, John Aldous was
sinking deeper and deeper into a black and abysmal night.

CHAPTER XXX

In that chaotic night in which he was drifting, light a