them suddenly into hot water, and what was left of his skull
was filled with the rushing and roaring of a flood. He staggered up,
clutching his face with both hands. The world about him was twisted and
black, a dizzily revolving thing--yet his still fighting mental vision
pictured clearly for him a monstrous, bulging-eyed sandpiper as big as
a house. Then he toppled back on the white sand, his arms flung out
limply, his face turned to the ambush wherein his murderer lay.

His body was clear of the rock and the pack, but there came no other
shot from the thick clump of balsam. Nor, for a time, was there
movement. The wood warbler was cheeping inquiringly at this sudden
change in the deportment of his friend behind the shoulder of shale.
The sandpiper, a bit startled, had gone back to the edge of the river
and was running a race with himself along the wet sand. And the two
quarrelsome jays had brought their family squabble to the edge of the
timber.

It was their wrangling that roused Carrigan to the fact that he was not
dead. It was a thrilling discovery--that and the fact that he made out
clearly a patch of sunlight in the sand. He did not move, but opened
his eyes wider. He could see the timber. On a straight line with his
vision was the thick clump of balsam. And as he looked, the boughs
parted and a figure came out. Carrigan drew a deep breath. He found
that it did not hurt him. He gripped the fingers of the hand that was
under his body, and they closed on the butt of his service automatic.
He would win yet, if God gave him life a few minutes longer.

His enemy advanced. As he drew nearer, Carrigan closed his eyes more
and more. They must be shut, and he must appear as if dead, when the
other came up. Then, when the scoundrel put down his gun, as he
naturally would--his chance would be at hand. If a quiver of his eyes
betrayed him--

He closed them tight. Dizziness began to creep over him, and the fire
in his brain grew hot again. He heard footsteps, and they stopped in
the sand close beside him. Then he heard a human voice. It did not
speak in words, but gave utterance to a strange and unnatural cry. With
a mighty effort Carrigan assembled his last strength. It seemed to him
that he brought himself up quickly, but his movement was slow,
painful--the effort of a man who might be dying. The automatic hung
limply in his hand, its muzzle pointing to the sand. He looked up,
trying to swing into action that mighty wei