.

It was not a question of nerve, as the other had stated. It was a test
of brutality and consciencelessness. To shoot a man while escaping is
one thing; to kill him while a prisoner, however contemptuous and
brazen, was another. But there are means other than bullets for
handling obstinate prisoners.

Weir shifted his weapon so as to grasp the barrel and have the butt
free.

"I'll leave your execution to the proper officials, if an execution
is what you want," he said. "Now will you go?" he demanded,
threateningly.

His foe gazed at the clubbed pistol and turned as if to yield. Next
instant he whirled, lunging at Weir and flinging his arms about his
captor. An exultant exclamation slipped from his lips; his hot breath
fell on the engineer's cheek; his eyes glared into those of the man
his arms encircled. He had tricked Weir by his pretense of obstinacy,
led him to weaken his guard and had him in his grasp.

Weir braced himself to resist the man's effort to force him down.
Strong arms the other had, now doubly strengthened by hate and a
belief in victory. All the power of Sorenson's great body was exerted
to lift him off his feet, crush him in a terrific bear-hug, put him on
his back and render him helpless; and Weir in his turn was tensing his
muscles and arching his frame with every ounce of his lean, iron-like
frame.

Thus they swayed and struggled in the moonlight, without witnesses. A
sinister silent fight, marked only by their fierce breathing and
fiercer heart-beats. The pistol had dropped from Steele Weir's hand;
instead of attempting to break the other's hold he had yielded to it
and pushing his own arms forward had clasped his hands behind
Sorenson's back in the wrestler's true defense to such an attack.

Once Sorenson almost had him on his knees, but by a quick powerful
upthrust of his legs he regained his upright position. However, it had
been a close shave for Weir, for he well knew that his opponent would
use any tactics, fair or foul, to kill him if he once lay on his
back.

"You hound from hell!" Sorenson snarled. "You crippled my boy, and you
shall die for that. You've ruined me in San Mateo, and you shall die
for that. You jailed Burkhardt and poisoned Gordon and shot Vorse, and
you shall die for that. I'm going to choke the life out of you, and
grind your dead head into the dust, and then spit on you. That's how
I treat snakes. Say your prayers, if you know any, for you'll never
get anoth