e cautious; their respect for each other's prowess was
increased.

Neither uttered a syllable; the taunts had ended; there was no call to
goad each other to fury, for the highest point of passion was already
attained. To spend breath in the utterance of words was to place
themselves in the position of the gymnast who breaks into laughter--it
would be a fatal weakening of strength.

The Panther, crouching low, clutching knife, with head thrust forward,
and gleaming eye fixed on his victim, began slowly circling around him,
on the watch for an opening that would permit him to bound forward and
strike his foe to the earth.

Standing thus in the centre of a circle, Kenton had but to turn slowly
so as to keep his face turned toward his assailant. It was the easiest
thing in the world to present indefinitely an unassailable front, and
yet The Panther had barely completed his first circuit when the opening
which he sought offered itself, and he seized it with lightning-like
quickness.

But it was presented purposely; Kenton incited the attack, and when the
Shawanoe demon shot through the air toward him, he steadied himself for
a second, and struck again with all the might and skill at command.

That which the ranger had not counted upon, or which was not likely to
happen once in a thousand times, intervened to save The Panther for the
single instant. He and Kenton struck precisely the same blow, and their
forearms glanced against each other. The stroke of the white man was the
more powerful, and impinging against the less muscular arm of the
Shawanoe with paralyzing force, sent his knife spinning twenty feet away
among the undergrowth. Before the agile Shawanoe could recover himself
the left hand of Kenton griped his throat, he was borne furiously
backward, hurled to the ground as though he were an infant, the knee of
the ranger was at his breast, and the knife was held ready to complete
the fearful work.

"Dog of a Shawanoe!" hissed the infuriated hunter, "you are conquered at
last! Now beg for mercy!"

Had the positions of the two been reversed, the prostrate foe could not
have been more defiant when he hissed back, with flashing eye:

"Dog of a pale-face, that is afraid to strike!"

The words were meant as a taunt to the ranger to do his worst.

Down deep in the heart of every being, no matter how degraded, how
sinful, how wicked, how merciless, is a spark of goodness which, when
fanned by the angel's breath, gl