all night, and that day had already
travelled many miles. I remember yet the sickly smell of his greasy
skin and the red hate of his eyes. As we struggled I could see Ringan
holding the mouth of the ravine with his sword. One of his foes he had
shot, and the best blade in the Five Seas was now engaged with three
Indian knives. I heard his happy whistling, and a grunt now and then
from a wounded foe. He had enough to do, and could give me no aid. And
as I realized this I felt the grip of my arms growing slacker, and knew
that in a second or two I should feel that long Indian steel.

I made a desperate effort, and swung round so that I got my left
shoulder on his knife arm. That brought my right shoulder close to his
mouth, and he bit me to the bone. The wound did me good, for it
maddened me, and I got a knee loose, and forced it into his loins. For
a moment I dreamed of victory, but I had not counted on the wiles of a
savage. He lay quite limp for a second, and, as I relaxed my effort a
little, seized the occasion to slip from beneath me and let me roll
into the burn. The next instant he was above me, and I saw the knife
against the sky.

I thought that all was over. He pushed back his hair from his eyes, and
the steel quivered. And then something thrust between me and the point,
there was a leap and a shudder, and I was gazing at emptiness.

I lay gazing, for I seemed bereft of wits. Then a voice cried, "Are you
hurt, Andrew?" and I got to my feet.

My enemy lay in the pool of the burn, with a hole through his throat
from Ringan's sword. A little farther off lay the savage I had shot. At
the mouth of the ravine lay three dead Indians. The last of the six
must have fled.

Ringan had sheathed his blade, and was looking at me with a queer smile
on his face.

"Yon was a merry bout, Andrew," he said, and his voice sounded very far
away. Then he swayed into my arms, and I saw that his vest was dark
with blood.

"What is it?" I cried in wild fear. "Are you hurt, Ringan?" I laid him
on a bed of moss, and opened his shirt. In his breast was a gaping
wound from which the bright blood was welling.

He lay with his eyes closed while I strove to stanch the flow. Then he
choked, and as I raised his head there came a gush of blood from his
lips.

"That man of yours...." he whispered. "I got his knife before he got my
sword.... I doubt it went deep...."

"O Ringan," I cried, "it's me that's to blame. You got it trying to