Owen bad
ever plotted. Wrentz himself might have envied the gorilla.

Blount drew his revolver. He was not more than a hundred feet below
them now. "It's the chance of hitting her against the chance of saving
her," he muttered. He fired. With a snarl of pain the gorilla turned
and bit savagely at its shoulder. Blount rushed on. He stopped again
and fired. He was at the verge of the cliff. He could blaze away now
with no danger of hitting Pauline, for he was a sure marksman.

With a great throb of joy in his heart the gallant young fellow saw the
beast turn, and, leaving Pauline with her arms around the limb, her
eyes shut against the dizzy depths below, move back and scramble down.

Blount was on the cliff-top as the gorilla reached the ground. The
beast charged. Blount fired again. Again the gorilla, snarling, bit
at its wounded side, but it came an as if a dozen lives vitalized the
gross body.

Blount backed away from the cliff, but the monster was upon him. It
clutched him, hurled him to ground, dragged him back to the dizzy
verge.

Slowly Blount was pressed over the precipice. The watchers below saw
him in his last struggle writhe in the deathly grasp, twist his
revolver and fire three shots into the heart of the gorilla.

Down the long fall to the jagged rocks went the beast.

Pauline was bending over the bleeding, battered form of the young
officer when the circus crew reached them.

"Oh, you are brave, brave!" she cried.

He opened his eyes and grinned merrily. "If I'm brave, I'd like to
know what you are."

"Oh, I'm not brave, I'm nothing but a selfish little pig," cried
Pauline. "I've treated the dearest fellow in the world shamefully.
He's forgiven me over and over, but he won't forgive me this time."

"He'll forgive you anything, Mim," Blount assured her, "for the sake of
getting you safe back. But I shouldn't like to be the man who got you
into this, when he hears of it."

"The man's safe enough," said Burgess, who had just up in time to hear
Blount's last words.

"No, he didn't escape that way," as Blount uttered an ejaculation of
disgust. "He ran full tilt into me and when I tried to arrest him he
drew his revolver on me. By good luck I got him first--yes, Jo, he's
dead."

"Dead," repeated Pauline in a low tone. "How horrible to go out of
life a moment after you had tried to commit murder."

"It's not his first," Burgess said coolly. "We've been after him and
his g