whide thongs. Then Jean's dizziness
faded. Cautiously he raised an eyelid. The breed was bending over him
with a looped thong. Not a muscle moved as the Frenchman waited. Nearer
leaned the thief. He reached to slip the looped rawhide over one of
Marcel's outstretched hands, when, with a lunge from the ground, the
arms of the latter clamped on his legs like a sprung trap. With a
wrench, the surprised thief was thrown heavily.

Cat-like, the hunter was on his man, bearing him down. And then began a
battle in which quarter was neither asked nor given. Heavier but slower
than the younger man, the thief vainly sought to reach Marcel's throat,
for the Frenchman's arms, having the under grip, blocked the half-breed
from Jean's knife and his own. Over and over they rolled, locked
together; so evenly matched in strength that neither could free a hand.
Near them yelped Fleur, frantic with excitement, plunging at her stake.

Then the close report of a gun sounded in Marcel's startled ears. A
great fear swept him. The absent thief was working back to camp. It was
a matter of minutes. Was it to this that he had toiled down the coast in
search of his dog--a grave in the Harricanaw mud? And the face of Julie
Breton flashed across his vision.

Desperate with the knowledge that he must win quickly, if at all, he
strained until the fingers of his left hand reached the haft of the
breed's knife. But a twinge shot through his shoulder like the stab of
steel, as the teeth of his enemy crunched into his flesh, and he lost
his grip. Maddened by pain, Marcel wrenched his right arm free and had
his own knife before the fingers of the thief closed on his wrist,
holding the blade in the sheath. Then began a duel of sheer strength.
For a time the straining arms lifted and pushed, at a dead lock. With
veins swelling on neck and forehead, Marcel fought to unsheath his
knife; but the half-breed's arm was iron, did not give. Again a gun was
fired--still nearer the camp.

With help at hand, the thief, safe so long as he held his grip, snarled
in triumph in the ear of his trapped enemy. But his peril only increased
the Frenchman's strength. The fighting blood of the Marcels boiled in
his veins. With a fierce heave of the shoulders the hand gripping the
knife moved upward. The arm of the thief gave way, only to straighten.
Then with a wrench that would not be denied, Jean tore the blade from
the sheath.

Frantically now, the breed, white with sudden