As Runnion fired he sprang out and was into the water to his knees, his backward kick whirling the craft from underneath him out into the current, where the river seized it.

He had risen and jumped all in one moment, launching himself at the shore like a panther.

The gun roared again, but Poleon came up and on with the rush of the great, brown grizzly that no missile can stop.

Runnion's weapon blazed in his face, but he neither felt nor heeded it, for his bare hands were upon his quarry, the impact of his body hurling the other from his feet, and neither of them knew whether any or all of the last bullets had taken effect.

Poleon had come like an arrow, straight for his mark the instant he glimpsed it, an insensate, unreasoning, raging thing that no weight of lead nor length of blade could stop.