wrists, but did not immediately
begin the frantic struggle I expected. His rifle fell to the soft earth
with hardly a sound and, like a dead weight, he crumpled up; falling so
quickly that I nearly came down on top of him.

At first, suspecting this might be a ruse to break my grip, I squeezed
the tighter, holding his head up as far as my knees and shaking it with
the savageness that a terrier would shake a rat. There was no room for
compromises here. Grimly believing him to be beyond the point of giving
an alarm, I was not prepared for an attack when he came to life with an
energy born of desperation, wrapped his arms about my legs and with
tremendous strength jerked me forward, at the same instant striking me
in the back with his knee. Thus, to keep from pitching over his head, I
involuntarily lost my hold--the last of all things I would have done!

Yet the effect to so violent a choking seemed for the moment to have
paralyzed his power to call, and swiftly, as a darting hawk, I made
another grab for the throat that must at all costs be silenced. He had
covered it with his own hands and I could not pry away his fingers.
Again and again I tried, and now, with growing strength, he caught my
wrists and held them. Maddened by the specter of failure, I heard him
drawing in a labored breath that I knew would come out in a hideous
yell.

Success lay upon the fraction of a second. In a frenzy jerking one of my
hands free, and throwing the full weight of my body across his face to
momentarily smother the outcry, I twisted around, drew my knife, and
plunged it deep into his side. There was a convulsive tremor, and
silence. Yet, as the king snake had done, I also drew back warily,
listening. It had been enough.

Springing up, and trying to calm my breathing, I called:

"Post one, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!"

The last word had no more than been pronounced when I was moving
swiftly, silently on post number two. True to his intention, Smilax had
prepared the way.

"Post two, 'leven o'clock, and all's-er-well!" I called in an altered
voice.

The sentry at post three, doubtless having a vein of humor or finding
any variation of his tedious duty agreeable, dwelt in his turn long and
almost lovingly over the "er-well," making it sound "e-e-er-well."

"How you like that?" he called, in a guarded tone, and receiving no
answer, laughed: "Then go ter hell with yer perlite manners."

A few minutes elapsed before I was c