Spang!  Spang!

The two rifle reports thundered through the glade.  Two Indians staggered and fell in their tracks—­dead without a cry.

A huge yellow body, spread out like a panther in his spring, descended with a crash upon Deering and Girty.  The girl fell away from the renegade as he went down with a shrill screech, dragging Deering with him.  Instantly began a terrific, whirling, wrestling struggle.

A few feet farther down the cliff another yellow body came crashing down to alight with a thud, to bound erect, to rush forward swift as a leaping deer.  The two remaining Indians had only time to draw their weapons before this lithe, threatening form whirled upon them.  Shrill cries, hoarse yells, the clash of steel and dull blows mingled together.  One savage went down, twisted over, writhed and lay still.  The other staggered, warded off lightninglike blows until one passed under his guard, and crashed dully on his head.  Then he reeled, rose again, but only to have his skull cloven by a bloody tomahawk.

The victor darted toward the whirling mass.

“Lew, shake him loose!  Let him go!” yelled Jonathan Zane, swinging his bloody weapon.

High above Zane’s cry, Deering’s shouts and curses, Girty’s shrieks of fear and fury, above the noise of wrestling bodies and dull blows, rose a deep booming roar.

It was Wetzel’s awful cry of vengeance.

“Shake him loose,” yelled Jonathan.

Baffled, he ran wildly around the wrestlers.  Time and time again his gory tomahawk was raised only to be lowered.  He found no opportunity to strike.  Girty’s ghastly countenance gleamed at him from the whirl of legs, and arms and bodies.  Then Wetzel’s dark face, lighted by merciless eyes, took its place, and that gave way to Deering’s broad features.  The men being clad alike in buckskin, and their motions so rapid, prevented Zane from lending a helping hand.

Suddenly Deering was propelled from the mass as if by a catapult.  His body straightened as it came down with a heavy thud.  Zane pounced upon it with catlike quickness.  Once more he swung aloft the bloody hatchet; then once more he lowered it, for there was no need to strike.  The renegade’s side was torn open from shoulder to hip.  A deluge of blood poured out upon the moss.  Deering choked, a bloody froth formed on his lips.  His fingers clutched at nothing.  His eyes rolled violently and then were fixed in an awful stare.

The girl lying so quiet in the woods near the old hut was avenged!

Jonathan turned again to Wetzel and Girty, not with any intention to aid the hunter, but simply to witness the end of the struggle.

Without the help of the powerful Deering, how pitifully weak was the Deathshead of the frontier in the hands of the Avenger!

Jim Girty’s tomahawk was thrown in one direction and his knife in another.  He struggled vainly in the iron grip that held him.