Of what happened next many garbled accounts have gone forth, for of all those present, none but the Bronco Kid knew its significance and ever recounted the truth concerning it.  Some claim that the younger man was seized with a fear of death which multiplied his enormous strength, others that the power died in his adversary as reward for his treason; but it was not so.

No sooner had Roy encompassed McNamara’s waist from the rear than he slid his damaged hand up past the other’s chest and around the back of his neck, thus bringing his own left arm close under his enemy’s left armpit, wedging the receiver’s head forward, while with his other hand he grasped the politician’s right wrist close to the revolver, thus holding him in a grasp which could not be broken.  Now came the test.  The two bodies set themselves rocklike and rigid.  There was no lunging about.  Calling up the final atom of his strength, Glenister bore backward with his right arm and it became a contest for the weapon which, clutched in the two hands, swayed back and forth or darted up and down, the fury of resistance causing it to trace formless patterns in the air with its muzzle.  McNamara shook himself, but he was close against the safe and could not escape, his head bowed forward by the lock of the miner’s left arm, and so he strained till the breath clogged in his throat.  Despite the grievous toil his right hand moved back slightly.  His feet shifted a bit, while the blood seemed bursting from his eyes, but he found that the long fingers encircling his wrist were like gyves weighted with the strength of the hills and the irresistible vigor of youth which knew no defeat.  Slowly, inch by inch, the great man’s arm was dragged back, down past his side, while the strangling labor of his breath showed at what awful cost.  The muzzle of the gun described a semicircle and the knotted hands began to travel towards the left, more rapidly now, across his broad back.  Still he struggled and wrenched, but uselessly.  He strove to fire the weapon, but his fingers were woven about it so that the hammer would not work.  Then the miner began forcing upward.

The white skin beneath the men’s strips of clothing was stretched over great knots and ridges which sunk and swelled and quivered.  Helen, watching in silent terror, felt her brother sinking his fingers into her shoulder and heard him panting, his face ablaze with excitement, while she became conscious that he had. repeated time and again: 

“It’s the hammer-lock—­the hammer-lock.”

By now McNamara’s arm was bent and cramped upon his back, and then they saw Glenister’s shoulder dip, his elbow come closer to his side, and his body heave in one final terrific effort as though pushing a heavy weight.  In the silence something snapped like a stick.  There came a deafening report and the scream of a strong man overcome with agony.  McNamara went to his knees and sagged forward on to his face as though every bone in his huge bulk had turned to water, while his master reeled back against the opposite wall, his heels dragging in the litter, bringing up with outflung arms as though fearful of falling, swaying, blind, exhausted, his face blackened by the explosion of the revolver, yet grim with the light of victory.