to be rid
of her, cursing wickedly--struck as he would have struck at a man.
Silently she crumpled up and fell, a pitiful, draggled, awkward little
figure sprawled upon the rocks; but the delay proved fatal to him, for,
though the canoe was close against the bank, and the huge man in it
seemed to offer a mark too plain to be missed, he was too close to
permit careful aim. Runnion heard him giving utterance to a strange,
feral, whining sound, as if he were crying like a fighting boy; then,
as the gambler raised his arm, the Canadian lifted himself up on the
bottom of the canoe until he stood stretched to his full height, and
leaped. As Runnion fired he sprang out and was into the water to his
knees, his backward kick whirling the craft from underneath him out
into the current, where the river seized it. He had risen and jumped
all in one moment, launching himself at the shore like a panther. The
gun roared again, but Poleon came up and on with the rush of the great,
brown grizzly that no missile can stop. Runnion's weapon blazed in his
face, but he neither felt nor heeded it, for his bare hands were upon
his quarry, the impact of his body hurling the other from his feet, and
neither of them knew whether any or all of the last bullets had taken
effect. Poleon had come like an arrow, straight for his mark the
instant he glimpsed it, an insensate, unreasoning, raging thing that no
weight of lead nor length of blade could stop. In his haste he had left
Flambeau without weapon of any kind, for in his mind such things were
superfluous, and he had never fought with any but those God gave him,
nor found any living thing that his hands could not master. Therefore,
he had rushed headlong against this armed and waiting man, reaching for
him ever closer and closer till the burning powder stung his eyes. They
grappled and fought, alone and unseen, and yet it was no fight, for
Runnion, though a vigorous, heavy-muscled man, was beaten down,
smothered, and crushed beneath the onslaught of this great naked
fellow, who all the time sobbed and whined and mewed in a panting fury.

They swung half across the spit to the farther side, where they fell in
a fantastic convulsion, slipping and sliding and rolling among the
rocks that smote and gouged and bruised them. The gambler fought for
his life against the naked flesh of the other, against the distorted
face that snapped and bit like the muzzle of a wolf, while all the time
he heard that fea