to a deep, narrow slit between the logs, drawing
her down with me and wedging my shoulders as if they were held in a
vise.

It might have been a serious fall--for her, I mean--had not
providentially she landed atop of me; but now, trying to arise, I found
that I had measured neither her strength of purpose nor of muscle. Her
determination had not been cooled by this mishap, rather had it become
more aroused with the consciousness of her advantage; for, in answer to
my first movement, she caught my cheeks and passionately shook me. Her
eyes, scarcely half a foot away, stared down into mine with a
frightened, pleading, commanding look. They were open wider than usual,
giving the impression that this was the first test of physical encounter
she had ever experienced.

"You're safe here!--you shan't move!" she was whispering wildly.

"I must," I declared. "He's got to be stopped, I tell you!"

I did not want to hurt her, yet at all hazards that man had to be
killed, and I began really to struggle.

"No--no!" she panted, pushing down my partially raised head with a jolt
that made me see stars. For she was fighting this time, with the
ferocity of a tigress, and I, held by her weight, found the task of
freeing myself no easy one. I tried working loose one shoulder, growling
between my teeth:

"I _will_ get out of here!"

"You won't--you won't!" She reiterated this as if sheer force of mind
could make me yield. And then her hair, uncoiling, fell softly over my
face and closed my eyes.

There is a mesmeric force about the human hair, a woman's hair, resting
on a man's upturned face--although I do not mean this in a sentimental
sense. It is a natural law; as a wild bird can be put into a state of
mimic sleep by laying it on its back and pressing its eyes with
feathers.

The frenzy of Doloria's clutching fingers that still held my cheeks,
and the pressure of her body whose excited breathing wedged me even
tighter down between the logs, had been to us no more than incidents in
the desperate struggle we were making, each for the other's safety. But,
blinded by her hair, for the moment I desisted and, taking quick
advantage of this, she whispered:

"If you've any wish to please me, listen! I know those men by
heart--each is an arrant coward when alone. So he won't crawl closer. By
the time he brings the others back we'll be inside the fort!"

"That's just it," I retorted. "The fort's no good at night--they'll rush
it! H