omething terrible in my voice for it was the voice
of a strong man going down to death, firm of purpose, and unafraid.

The feel of the weapon gave the Indian renewed energy. He sprang at me
with a maniac's might. He was a maniac henceforth. Three times we raged
across the narrow fighting ground. Three times I struck that murderous
blade aside, but not without a loss of my own blood for each thrust,
until at last by sheer virtue of muscle against muscle, I wrenched it
from Jean's hand, dripping with my red life-tide. And even as I seized
it, it slipped from me and fell, this time to the ledges far below. Then
hell broke all bounds for us, and what followed there in that shadowy
twilight, I care not to recall much less to set it down here.

I do not know how long we battled there, nor whose blood most stained
the stone of that sanctuary, nor how many times I was underneath, nor
how often on top of my assailant. Not all the struggles of my sixty
years combined, and I have known many, could equal that fight for life.

There came a night in later time when for what seemed an age to me, I
matched my physical power and endurance against the terrible weight of
broken timbers of a burning bridge that was crushing out human lives, in
a railroad wreck. And every second of that eternity-long time, I faced
the awful menace of death by fire. The memory of that hour is a pleasure
to me when contrasted with this hand to hand battle with a murderer.

It ended at last--such strife is too costly to endure long--ended with a
form stretched prone and helpless and whining for mercy before a
conqueror, whose life had been well-nigh threshed out of him; but the
fallen fighter was Jean Pahusca, and the man who towered over him was
Phil Baronet.

The half-breed deserved to die. Life for him meant torturing death to
whatever lay in his path. It meant untold agony for whomsoever his hand
fell upon. And greater to me than these then was the murderous conflict
just ended, in which I had by very miracle escaped death again and
again. Men do not fight such battles to weep forgiving tears on one
another's necks when the end comes. When the spirit of mortal strife
possesses a man's soul, the demons of hell control it. The moment for a
long overdue retribution was come. As we had clinched and torn one
another there Jean's fury had driven him to a maniac's madness. The
blessed heritage of self-control, my endowment from my father, had not
deserted me