," pleaded Torrance.
"They're just getting into it. I see a knife out."

"And that's what we must forestall. Or it'll end only when the
Italians and the Hungarians have cleaned out the Swedes and the Poles,
or vice versa. There's not a second to waste."

He had hold of Torrance's arm and was forcing him to run.

"I know you're right, Adrian," panted Torrance, "but I don't want to."

As they neared the camp, running now at top speed, Conrad saw Koppy
emerge fussily from his shack above the camp and come leaping down--too
late, of course, to be of much service.

The fight had grown to alarming proportions. Originating in a mere
normal act of cheating at cards, naturally resented by a huge Swede who
had been losing steadily to a one-eyed Italian, it had passed swiftly
into the realms of the smouldering feud between the races. And the
first blow had excited the onlookers to take vociferous sides; the
first weapon had roused their lingering instincts of antagonism; and
the first drop of blood had driven a dozen of them headlong into the
melee. Before Conrad and Torrance arrived, knives and knife-ended
knuckle-dusters and clubs were swinging.

The most disgusting feature of the shrieking, struggling mass was the
presence on its outskirts of sneaking villains intent only on their
personal enemies.

One of these had just plunged his knife into an unsuspecting arm when
Torrance caught sight of him. It fired his blood to a blind fury.
With a lunge he planted his heavy boot on the brute's forehead, and the
fellow crumpled up and lay record to an honest man's anger. Thereafter
Torrance knew only that he was enjoying himself, as fist and boot
struck snarling face or struggling body. Followed a few minutes of
more careful fighting, as the roused bohunks began to retaliate; and
then a sense of personal danger not to be countered by any amount of
exertion.

As he threw himself into the fight he glowed with the satisfaction of
knowing that every face before him belonged to an enemy. Normally
slinking cowards before authority, the bohunks were now inflamed beyond
anything but brute force. Curses too deep and furious to express more
than their tone--the cries of the wounded--the panting of laboured
breathing--Torrance roared into it, striking right and left.

At the last moment Conrad turned aside. He had an idea that the
impression on the warring elements would be increased by separate
attacks. From another angle,