dshot and fever-hot with
murder-bent.

Yet with an impulse that came through even that red fog of fury Parish
Thornton turned his head and looked for the fraction of an instant down
upon the gray roof and the green tree where the shadows lay lengthed in
the valley--and in that half second of diverted gaze Rowlett launched
himself like a charging bull, with head down to ram his adversary's
solar plexus and with arms outstretched for a bone-breaking grapple.

It was a suddenness which even with suddenness expected came bolt-like,
and Thornton, leaping sidewise, caught its passing force and stumbled,
but grappled and carried his adversary down with him. The two rolled in
an embrace that strained ribs inward on panting lungs, leg locking leg,
and fingers clutching for a vulnerable hold. But Thornton slipped
eel-like out of the chancery that would have crushed him into
helplessness and sprang to his feet, and if Rowlett was slower, it was
by only a shade of difference.

They stood, with sweat already flowing in tiny freshets out of their
pores and eyes blazing with murderous fire. They crouched and circled,
advancing step by step, each warily sparring for an advantage and ready
to plunge in or leap sidewise. Then came the impact of bone and flesh
once more, and both went down, Thornton's face pressed against that of
his enemy as they fell, and Rowlett opened and clamped his jaws as does
a bull-dog trying for a grip upon the jugular.

That battle was homerically barbaric and starkly savage. It was fought
between two wild creatures who had shed their humanity: one the stronger
and more massive of brawn; the other more adroit and resourceful. But
the teeth of the conspirator closed on the angle of the jawbone instead
of the neck--and found no fleshy hold, and while they twisted and
writhed with weird incoherencies of sound going up in the smother of
dust, Bas Rowlett felt the closing of iron fingers on his throat. While
he clawed and gripped and kicked to break the strangle, his eyes seemed
to swell and burn and start from their sockets, and the patch of
darkening sky went black.

It was only the collapse of the human mass in his arms into dead weight
that brought Parish Thornton again out of his mania and back to
consciousness. The battle was over, and as he drew his arms away his
enemy sank shapeless and limp at his feet.

For a few seconds more Thornton stood rocking on unsteady legs, then,
with a final and supreme ef