ay. The little cove on the bluff-side, was
not more than fifteen feet across at its widest place. The shelf of
sloping stone made a fairly even floor. In this little retreat I had
been bound and unable to move for an hour. My muscles were tense at
first. I was dazed, too, by a sudden deliverance from the slow torture
that had seemed inevitable for me. The issue, however, was no less awful
than swift. I had just cause for wreaking vengeance on my foeman. Twice
he had attempted to take O'mie's life. The boy might be dead from the
headlong fall at this very minute, for all I knew. The clods were only
two days old on Bud Anderson's grave. Nothing but the skill and
sacrifice of O'mie had saved Marjie from this brute's lust six years
before. While he lived, my own life was never for one moment safe. And
more than everything else was the possibility of a fate for Marjie too
horrible for me to dwell upon. All these things swept through my mind
like a lightning flash.

If ever the Lord in the moment of supreme peril gave courage and
self-control, these good and perfect gifts were mine in that evening's
strife. With the first plunge he had thrown me, and he was struggling to
free his hand from my grasp to get at my throat; his knee was on my
chest.

"You're in my land now," he hissed in my ear.

"Yes, but this is Phil Baronet still," I answered with a calmness so
dominant, it stayed the struggle for a moment. I was playing on him the
same trick by which he had so often deceived us,--the pretended
relaxation of all effort, and indifference to further strife. In that
moment's pause I gained my lost vantage. Quick as thought I freed my
other hand, and, holding still his murderous grip from my throat, I
caught him by the neck, and pushing his head upward, I gave him such a
thrust that his hold on me loosened a bit. A bit only, but that was
enough, for when he tightened it again, I was on my feet and the strife
was renewed--renewed with the fierceness of maddened brutes, lashed into
fury. Life for one of us meant death for the other, and I lost every
humane instinct in that terrible struggle except the instinct to save
Marjie first, and my own life after hers. Civilization slips away in
such a battle, and the fighter is only a jungle beast, knowing no law
but the unquenchable thirst for blood. The hand that holds this pen is
clean to-day, clean and strong and gentle. It was a tiger's claw that
night, and Jean's hot blood following