elbow, then dodged out of his way. Her blow was crafty and well-
timed, and his shot went wild. Again he took aim, and again she
destroyed it with a touch and danced out of his reach. She was
nimble and light, and quickened now by a cold calculation of all
that depended upon her.

Three times in all she thwarted Runnion, while the canoe drove
closer every instant. On the fourth, as she dashed at him, he struck
to be rid of her, cursing wickedly--struck as he would have struck
at a man. Silently she crumpled up and fell, a pitiful, draggled,
awkward little figure sprawled upon the rocks; but the delay proved
fatal to him, for, though the canoe was close against the bank, and
the huge man in it seemed to offer a mark too plain to be missed, he
was too close to permit careful aim. Runnion heard him giving
utterance to a strange, feral, whining sound, as if he were crying
like a fighting boy; then, as the gambler raised his arm, the
Canadian lifted himself up on the bottom of the canoe until he stood
stretched to his full height, and leaped. As Runnion fired he sprang
out and was into the water to his knees, his backward kick whirling
the craft from underneath him out into the current, where the river
seized it. He had risen and jumped all in one moment, launching
himself at the shore like a panther. The gun roared again, but
Poleon came up and on with the rush of the great, brown grizzly that
no missile can stop. Runnion's weapon blazed in his face, but he
neither felt nor heeded it, for his bare hands were upon his quarry,
the impact of his body hurling the other from his feet, and neither
of them knew whether any or all of the last bullets had taken
effect. Poleon had come like an arrow, straight for his mark the
instant he glimpsed it, an insensate, unreasoning, raging thing that
no weight of lead nor length of blade could stop. In his haste he