She became aware that he was holding her from him, listening.  There was a crash of wood.

Again her call for help rang out.

Whaley flung her from him.  He crouched, every nerve and muscle tense, lips drawn back in a snarl.  She saw that in his hand there was a revolver.

Against the door a heavy weight was hurled.  The wood burst into splinters as the bolt shot from the socket.  Drunkenly a man plunged across the threshold, staggering from the impact of the shock.

CHAPTER XVIII

A GUN ROARS

The two men glared at each other, silently, their faces distorted to gargoyles in the leaping and uncertain light.  Wary, vigilant, tense, they faced each other as might jungle tigers waiting for the best moment to attack.

There was a chance for the situation to adjust itself without bloodshed.  Whaley could not afford to kill and Morse had no desire to force his hand.

Jessie’s fear outran her judgment.  She saw the menace of the revolver trained on her rescuer and thought the gambler was about to fire.  She leaped for the weapon, and so precipitated what she dreaded.

The gun roared.  A bullet flew past Morse and buried itself in a log.  Next instant, clinging with both hands to Whaley’s wrist, Jessie found herself being tossed to and fro as the man struggled to free his arm.  Flung at a tangent against the wall, she fell at the foot of the couch where Fergus slept.

Again the blaze and roar of the revolver filled the room.  Morse plunged head down at his enemy, still carrying the log he had used as a battering-ram.  It caught the gambler at that point of the stomach known as the solar plexus.  Whaley went down and out of consciousness like an ox that has been pole-axed.

Tom picked up the revolver and dropped it into the pocket of his fur coat.  He stooped to make sure that his foe was beyond the power of doing damage.  Then he lifted Jessie from the corner where she lay huddled.

“Hurt?” he asked.

The girl shuddered.  “No.  Is he—­is he killed?”

“Wind knocked out of him.  Nothing more.”

“He didn’t hit you?”

There was the ghost of a smile in his eyes.  “No, I hit him.”

“He was horrid.  I—­I—­” Again a little shiver ran through her body.  She felt very weak at the knees and caught for a moment at the lapel of his coat to steady herself.  Neither of them was conscious of the fact that she was in his arms, clinging to him while she won back self-control.

“It’s all right now.  Don’t worry.  Lucky I came back to show Blandoine which furs to take.”

“If you hadn’t—­” She drew a ragged breath that was half a sob.

Morse loved her the more for the strain of feminine hysteria that made her for the moment a soft and tender child to be comforted.  He had known her competent, savage, disdainful, one in whom vital and passionate life flowed quick.  He had never before seen the weakness in her reaching out to strength.  That by sheer luck it was his power to which she clung filled him with deep delight.