. She leaned against me,
so light and lily-frail, and as her trembling eased away it seemed as
though I became aware of prodigious strength. I felt myself a match for
the most ferocious bull in the herd, and I know, had such a bull charged
upon me, that I should have met it unflinchingly and quite coolly, and I
know that I should have killed it.

"I am all right now," she said, looking up at me gratefully. "Let us go
on."

And that the strength in me had quieted her and given her confidence,
filled me with an exultant joy. The youth of the race seemed burgeoning
in me, over-civilized man that I was, and I lived for myself the old
hunting days and forest nights of my remote and forgotten ancestry. I
had much for which to thank Wolf Larsen, was my thought as we went along
the path between the jostling harems.

A quarter of a mile inland we came upon the holluschickie--sleek young
bulls, living out the loneliness of their bachelorhood and gathering
strength against the day when they would fight their way into the ranks
of the Benedicts.

Everything now went smoothly. I seemed to know just what to do and how
to do it. Shouting, making threatening gestures with my club, and even
prodding the lazy ones, I quickly cut out a score of the young bachelors
from their companions. Whenever one made an attempt to break back toward
the water, I headed it off. Maud took an active part in the drive, and
with her cries and flourishings of the broken oar was of considerable
assistance. I noticed, though, that whenever one looked tired and
lagged, she let it slip past. But I noticed, also, whenever one, with a
show of fight, tried to break past, that her eyes glinted and showed
bright, and she rapped it smartly with her club.

"My, it's exciting!" she cried, pausing from sheer weakness. "I think
I'll sit down."

I drove the little herd (a dozen strong, now, what of the escapes she had
permitted) a hundred yards farther on; and by the time she joined me I
had finished the slaughter and was beginning to skin. An hour later we
went proudly back along the path between the harems. And twice again we
came down the path burdened with skins, till I thought we had enough to
roof the hut. I set the sail, laid one tack out of the cove, and on the
other tack made our own little inner cove.

"It's just like home-coming," Maud said, as I ran the boat ashore.

I heard her words with a responsive thrill, it was all so dearly intima