ate-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.

"I am not going to kill him," he said, "but, by God! He will wish I
had! I hope he will live to be an old, old man. To the day of his
death he will carry my mark. Bone-deep he will carry the scar of the
gun-brand! The cross of the curse of Cain!"

MacNair turned from the girl and again the gun crept slowly upward.
The quarter-breed had heard the words. With a mighty effort he filled
his lungs and from