t with infernal desperation.
The rain came fiercely in great gusts of tearing wind. There was the
strength of a madman to-night in Carl's powerful arms. Relentlessly he
bore his assailant to the ground and raised his knife. The lightning
flared brilliantly again. With a great, choking cry of unutterable
horror, Carl fell back and flung his knife away.

"Oh, God!" he cried, shaking. "Philip!" He flung himself face
downward on the ground in an agony of abasement.

With a roar of wind and rain the hurricane beat gustily upon the
wigwams. Neither man seemed aware of it. Philip, his face white, had
risen. Now he stood, tall, rigid, towering above the man upon the
ground, who lay motionless save for the shuddering gusts of
self-revulsion which swept his tortured body.

It was Philip at last who spoke. Bending he touched the other's
shoulder.

"Come," he said. "Diane must not know."

"No," said Carl dully. "No--she must not know. I--I am not myself,
Philip, as God is my witness--" He choked, unable to voice the horror
in his heart. A man may not raise the knife of death to his one friend
and speak of it with comfort.

Rising, Carl stumbled blindly in the wake of the tall figure striding
on ahead. They halted at last at a wigwam on the fringe of the camp.
Philip lighted a lantern, his white face fixed and expressionless as
stone.

"You were going to kill her!" he said abruptly.

"Yes," said Carl. He shuddered.

In the silence the storm battered fiercely at the wigwam.

Philip wheeled furiously.

"What is it?" he demanded. "In God's name what threatens her, that
even here in these God-forsaken wilds she is not safe?" He towered
grim above the crouching man on the floor of the wigwam. "For months I
have guarded her day and night," he went on fiercely, "from some
damnable mystery and treachery that has almost muddled my life beyond
repair. What is it? Why were you creeping to her wigwam to-night with
a knife in your hand?"

Carl flinched beneath the blazing anger and contempt in his eyes. The
droning in his head grew suddenly to a roar. The nausea flamed again
over his body. For a dizzy interval he confused the noise of the storm
with the drone in his head. Philip seized the lantern and bending,
stared closely into his white face and haunted eyes.

"You're ill!" he said gently.

"Yes," said Carl. "I--I think so." He met Philip's glance of sympathy
with one of wild imploring. It was t