n was inside, on the bottom of the cage,
the woman was outside it. Her huddled but still resisting body was
locked and jammed halfway across the narrow door. One of her
opponent's great, ape-like strangling arms was about her neck. But the
fingers at the end of it were caught between her strong white
carnivorous teeth; and they became stained with blood as, in her
frenzy, she fought and bit and struggled, with the blind fury of some
final despair. Her revolver she had been unable to use; it lay out of
her reach, behind them on the floor of the cage.

MacNutt, as he strained and tore at her resisting body, was fighting
and edging his way with her back into the cage, to where that waiting
revolver lay. He himself was already well within the narrow opening,
sprawled out red and disheveled and Titanesque on the cage floor. But
she was resisting him, inch by inch, fighting desperately, like a
cornered cat, for her very life, yet knowing there could be only one
end to that uneven conflict.

Durkin, after one comprehending glance, followed his first animal
impulse of offense, and descended on MacNutt, beating at the prone,
bull-like head, with its claret-colored bald spot, across which ran one
livid scratch. He pounded on the clustered fingers of the gorilla-like
hand, crushing and bruising them against the gilded iron grill-work,
through which was interwoven the Penfield triple crescent.

The clutching arms relaxed, but only for a moment. In that moment,
however, Durkin had stooped and with the one hand that remained with
him to use, struggled to tear Frank away from the deadly clutch. This
he would surely have done had not MacNutt seen his chance, and with his
free hand suddenly caught at the wounded wrist that hung stained and
limp at his enemy's side. That sudden, savage torture of the lacerated
flesh was more than the weak and exhausted body of Durkin could endure.
He emitted one little involuntary cry; then every protesting nerve and
sinew capitulated, a white light seemed to flash and burn at the base
of his very brain, and then go out. He fell fainting on the hard maple
floor.

For a moment or two, like a defeated prize-fighter, he panted and
struggled, ludicrously yet pathetically, to rise to his feet, but the
effort was futile.

It was as he found himself ebbing down through some soft and feathery
emptiness that he seemed to hear a pitiful and imploring voice call
thinly out, "_Mack_!" Still fainter