urned and
crackled. "Now we have them, brothers! In the trap!"

"And no one may gainsay me the gun of Bill-Man," Aab-Waak announced.

"Save Bill-Man," squeaked the old hunter. "For behold, he cometh now!"

Covered with a singed and blackened blanket, the big white man leaped
out of the blazing entrance, and on his heels, likewise shielded, came
Mesahchie, and the five other Sunlanders. The Hungry Folk tried to
check the rush with an ill-directed volley, while the Mandells hurled
in a cloud of spears and arrows. But the Sunlanders cast their flaming
blankets from them as they ran, and it was seen that each bore on his
shoulders a small pack of ammunition. Of all their possessions, they
had chosen to save that. Running swiftly and with purpose, they broke
the circle and headed directly for the great cliff, which towered
blackly in the brightening day a half-mile to the rear of the village.

But Tyee knelt on one knee and lined the sights of his rifle on the
rearmost Sunlander. A great shout went up when he pulled the trigger
and the man fell forward, struggled partly up, and fell again. Without
regard for the rain of arrows, another Sunlander ran back, bent over
him, and lifted him across his shoulders. But the Mandell spearmen
were crowding up into closer range, and a strong cast transfixed the
wounded man. He cried out and became swiftly limp as his comrade
lowered him to the ground. In the meanwhile, Bill-Man and the three
others had made a stand and were driving a leaden hail into the
advancing spearmen. The fifth Sunlander bent over his stricken fellow,
felt the heart, and then coolly cut the straps of the pack and stood
up with the ammunition and extra gun.

"Now is he a fool!" cried Tyee, leaping high, as he ran forward, to
clear the squirming body of one of the Hungry Folk.

His own rifle was clogged so that he could not use it, and he called
out for some one to spear the Sunlander, who had turned and was
running for safety under the protecting fire. The little old hunter
poised his spear on the throwing-stick, swept his arm back as he ran,
and delivered the cast.

"By the body of the Wolf, say I, it was a good throw!" Tyee praised,
as the fleeing man pitched forward, the spear standing upright between
his shoulders and swaying slowly forward and back.

The little weazened old man coughed and sat down. A streak of red
showed on his lips and welled into a thick stream. He coughed again,
and a strange whist