Lapierre was no weakling.  He strained and writhed to free himself from the encircling arms.  But the arms were bands of steel, clamping tighter and tighter about him.  Slowly MacNair worked his hand downward to the other’s wrist.  There was a lightning-like jerk, and the automatic new into the air and dropped harmless into the snow.  The same instant MacNair’s grasp tightened about the other wrist.  He released Lapierre’s disarmed hand and, reaching swiftly, tore the other gun from the man’s fingers.

Lapierre swung at his face, but MacNair leaned suddenly backward and outward, still grasping the wrist, Lapierre’s body described a short half-circle, and he brought up with a thud against a nearby pile of stove-wood.  Releasing his grip, MacNair crowded him close and closer against the wood-pile which rose waist high out of the snow.  Slowly Lapierre bent backward, forced by the heavier body of MacNair.  MacNair released his grip on the other’s wrist, but his right hand still held Lapierre’s gun.  A huge forearm slid up the quarter-breed’s chest and came to rest under the chin, while the man beat frantically with his two fists against MacNair’s shoulders and ribs.

He stared wildly into MacNair’s eyes—­eyes that glowed with a greenish hate-glare like the night-eyes of the wolf.  Backward and yet backward the man bent until it seemed that his spine must snap.  His clenched fists ceased to beat futilely against the huge shoulders of his opponent, and he clawed frantically at the snow that hung in a miniature cornice along the edge of the wood-pile.

Chloe crowded close, shoving the Indians aside.  There was a swift movement near her.  The Louchoux girl forced past and leaped lightly to the top of the wood-pile, where she knelt close, staring downward with hard, burning eyes into the up-turned face of Lapierre.

The man could bend no farther now, his shoulders were imbedded in the snow and the back of his head was buried to the ears.  His chest heaved spasmodically as he gasped for air, and the thin breath whined through his teeth.  His lips turned greyish-blue and swelled thick, like strips of blistered rubber, and his eyes rolled upward until they looked like the sightless eyes of the blind.  The blue-grey lips writhed spasmodically.  He tried to cry out, but the sound died in a horrible throaty gurgle.

Slowly, MacNair raised his gun—­Lapierre’s own gun that he had wrenched, bare-handed from his grasp.  Raised it until the muzzle reached the level of Lapierre’s eyes.  Chloe had stared wide-eyed throughout the whole proceeding.  Gazing in fascination at the slow deliberateness of the terrible ordeal.

As the muzzle of the gun came to rest between Lapierre’s eyes the girl sprang to MacNair’s side.  “Don’t!  Oh, don’t kill him!” Her voice rose almost to a shriek.  “Don’t kill him—­for my sake!”

The muzzle of the gun lowered and without releasing an ounce of pressure upon the grip-locked body of the man, MacNair slowly turned his eyes to meet the eyes of the girl.  Never in her life had she looked into eyes like that—­eyes that gleamed and stabbed, and burned with a terrible pent-up emotion.  The eyes of Tiger Elliston, intensified a hundredfold!  And then MacNair’s lips moved and his voice came low but distinctly and with terrible hardness.