the ground.
Jopp's superior height gave him an advantage in a close grip; the
strength of his gorilla-like arms was difficult to withstand. Both were
forgetful of the world, and the two other injured men, silent and awed,
were watching the fight, in which one of them, at least, was powerless
to take part.

The audience was breathless. Most now saw the grim reality of the scene
before them; and when at last O'Ryan's powerful right hand got a grip
upon the throat of Jopp, and they saw the grip tighten, tighten, and
Jopp's face go from red to purple, a hundred people gasped. Excited men
made as though to move toward the stage; but the majority still believed
that it all belonged to the play, and shouted "Sit down!"

Suddenly the voice of Gow Johnson was heard "Don't kill him--let go,
boy!"

The voice rang out with sharp anxiety, and pierced the fog of passion
and rage in which O'Ryan was moving. He realised what he was doing, the
real sense of it came upon him. Suddenly he let go the lank throat of
his enemy, and, by a supreme effort, flung him across the stage, where
Jopp lay resting on his hands, his bleared eyes looking at Terry with
the fear and horror still in them which had come with that tightening
grip on his throat.

Silence fell suddenly on the theatre. The audience was standing. A
woman sobbed somewhere in a far corner, but the rest were dismayed and
speechless. A few steps before them all was Molly Mackinder, white and
frightened, but in her eyes was a look of understanding as she gazed at
Terry. Breathing hard, Terry stood still in the middle of the stage,
the red fog not yet gone out of his eyes, his hands clasped at his side,
vaguely realising the audience again. Behind him was the back curtain in
which the lights of Orion twinkled aggressively. The three men who had
attacked him were still where he had thrown them.

The silence was intense, the strain oppressive. But now a drawling voice
came from the back of the hall. "Are you watching the rise of Orion?" it
said. It was the voice of Gow Johnson.

The strain was broken; the audience dissolved in laughter; but it was
not hilarious; it was the nervous laughter of relief, touched off by a
native humour always present in the dweller of the prairie.

"I beg your pardon," said Terry quietly and abstractedly to the
audience.

And the scene-shifter bethought himself and let down the curtain.

The fourth act was not played that night. The people had had