She had forgotten Brodie and King!  She turned toward them.  She did not dare shoot now; King was in the way.  He moved aside as if he understood her trouble; Brodie, grown unthinkably quick of foot, moved with him.  Brodie, too, understood.  She saw him leap in and strike.  The blow landed, a glancing blow.  King seemed to have grown tired; he moved so slowly.  But he did move and toward Brodie; he swung his clubbed rifle-barrel and beat at Brodie’s great face with it.  Beat and missed and almost fell forward.  Again Brodie struck; again King beat at him.  They moved up and down, back and forth; Brodie was cursing under his breath, and at last jeering.  King was moving more and more slowly; his left arm swung as if it were useless; Brodie swept up his club in both hands, grunting audibly with every blow....  Oh, if she could only shoot ... if she only dared shoot!  But Brodie, nimble on his feet that had been so patiently slow just now, kept King always in front of him, between him and Gloria’s rifle.

“I’ll get you, King.  I’ll get you,” shouted Brodie, his voice exulting.  “I always wanted to get you—­right!”

There was a crash, the splintering of wood against steel.  Both men had struck together; Brodie’s club had broken to splinters.  And the rifle-barrel in King’s hands flew out of his grip and across the cave, ringing out as it struck.  The two men, their hands empty, stood a moment staring at each other.  Then Brodie shouted, a great shout of triumph, and sprang forward.  And Mark King, steadying himself, ignoring the hot trickle of blood down his side where Benny’s second bullet had torn his flesh, met him with a cry that was like Brodie’s own.  In his hot brain there was no thought of handicap, of odds, of Brodie’s advantage.  There was only the mad rage which had hurled him here, one man against five in a girl’s defence, that and a raving, unleashed blood lust, the desire, overshadowing all else, to have Brodie’s brute throat in his hands, to batter Brodie’s brute face into the rocks.  They met in their onrush like two bodies hurled from catapults; they struck and grappled and fell and rolled together, one now as they strove, locked in the embrace of death.  An embrace in which Brodie’s was the greater weight, the greater girth, the greater strength—­and Mark King’s the greater sheer, clean manhood.

Gloria ran toward them, the rifle shaking in her hands.  Brodie feared her and strove to turn and twist so that she could not shoot.  King saw her and shouted in a terrible voice which was not like Mark King’s voice: 

“Don’t shoot—­let me—­”

She did not heed; she would shoot—­if ever she could be sure that she would not shoot him.  But she did not dare—­they thrashed about so madly.  They were like octopuses in mortal combat; their arms flailing seemed more than four arms——­

Brodie had his hands at King’s throat—­King’s hands were at Brodie’s throat.  She saw Brodie’s bestial face gloating.  He was so confident now.  She saw his great hands shut down, sinking into the flesh.  King’s face, when she got one swift glimpse of it, was set, void of expression.  King’s hands, with tendons bursting, sank deeper and deeper.  Then she understood that each man had the grip that he wanted; that it was a mere matter now of strength and endurance and will—­and that glorious thing, sheer, clean manhood.