hristian from one side, the sheriff and the deputy from the other,
rushed in. They did not fire. It was Dyke alive they wanted. One of them
had a riata snatched from a saddle-pommel, and with this they tried to
bind him.

The fight was four to one--four men with law on their side, to one
wounded freebooter, half-starved, exhausted by days and nights of
pursuit, worn down with loss of sleep, thirst, privation, and the
grinding, nerve-racking consciousness of an ever-present peril.

They swarmed upon him from all sides, gripping at his legs, at his
arms, his throat, his head, striking, clutching, kicking, falling to
the ground, rolling over and over, now under, now above, now staggering
forward, now toppling back. Still Dyke fought. Through that scrambling,
struggling group, through that maze of twisting bodies, twining arms,
straining legs, S. Behrman saw him from moment to moment, his face
flaming, his eyes bloodshot, his hair matted with sweat. Now he was
down, pinned under, two men across his legs, and now half-way up again,
struggling to one knee. Then upright again, with half his enemies
hanging on his back. His colossal strength seemed doubled; when his
arms were held, he fought bull-like with his head. A score of times, it
seemed as if they were about to secure him finally and irrevocably, and
then he would free an arm, a leg, a shoulder, and the group that, for
the fraction of an instant, had settled, locked and rigid, on its prey,
would break up again as he flung a man from him, reeling and bloody, and
he himself twisting, squirming, dodging, his great fists working like
pistons, backed away, dragging and carrying the others with him.

More than once, he loosened almost every grip, and for an instant stood
nearly free, panting, rolling his eyes, his clothes torn from his body,
bleeding, dripping with sweat, a terrible figure, nearly free. The
sheriff, under his breath, uttered an exclamation:

"By God, he'll get away yet."

S. Behrman watched the fight complacently.

"That all may show obstinacy," he commented, "but it don't show common
sense."

Yet, however Dyke might throw off the clutches and fettering embraces
that encircled him, however he might disintegrate and scatter the band
of foes that heaped themselves upon him, however he might gain one
instant of comparative liberty, some one of his assailants always hung,
doggedly, blindly to an arm, a leg, or a foot, and the others, drawing a
second's bre