or. Against a
background of unbroken white a trail of red blotches ended in the mutely
pathetic figure of a prostrate dying horse--a noble thoroughbred. What
varied horrors seethed in the watcher's brain, crowded each other,
recurred and again recurred! How the long sinewy fingers itched to
clutch that throat above the red neckerchief! He could see the man's
face now, as, ignorant of danger so close, he was passing by fifty feet
to the left, looking to neither side, doggedly heading toward the pass.
With the first motion since the figure had appeared, the hand of the
watcher tightened on the rifle, raised it until its black muzzle peeped
over the elevation of snow. A pair of steady blue eyes gazed down the
long barrel, brought the sights in line with a spot between the
shoulders and the waist of the unsuspecting man, the trigger-finger
tightened, almost--

A preventing something, something not primal in the youth, gripped him,
held him for a second motionless. To kill a man from an ambush, even
such a one as this without giving him a chance--no, he could not quite
do that. But to take him by the throat with his bare hands, and then
slowly, slowly--

As noiselessly as the rifle had raised, it dropped again. The muscles of
the long legs tightened as do those of a sprinter awaiting the starting
pistol. Then over the barricade, straight as a tiger leaps, shot a tall
youth with steel-blue eyes, hatless, free of hand, straight for that
listless, moving figure; the scattered snow flying to either side, the
impact of the bounding feet breaking the previous stillness. Tom Blair,
the outlaw, could not but hear the rush. Instinctively he turned, and in
the fleeting second of that first glance Ben could see the face above
the beard-line blanch. As one might feel should the Angel of Death
appear suddenly before him, Tom Blair must have felt then. As though
fallen from the sky, this avenging demon was upon him. He had not time
to draw a revolver, a knife; barely to swing the rifle in his hand
upward to strike, to brace himself a little for the oncoming rush.

With a crash the two bodies came together. Simultaneously the rifle
descended, but for all its effectiveness it might have been a dead
weed-stalk in the hands of a child. It was not a time for artificial
weapons, but only for nature's own; a war of gripping, strangling hands,
of tooth and nail. Nearly of a size were the two men. Both alike were
hardened of muscle; both realiz