, only seemed waiting the issue, ready to
lay his hand to finishing it in the event that she should fail.

The fighting woman, still screaming above the din of their trampling
feet, struggled to lift her knee to Reid's chest. Mackenzie turned
from the window to interfere, not caring to see Reid go that way, no
matter what sins lay upon his young soul. As he came running to the
door, he saw Reid struggle to his feet, tear the mad woman's hands
away, and strike her a sharp blow in the face.

There must have been surprising power in that slender arm, or else its
strength was multiplied by the frenzy of the strangling man, for the
woman dropped as if she had been struck with an ax. Swan Carlson,
standing there like a great oaf, opened his immense mouth and
laughed.

Reid staggered against the wall, hands at his throat, blood streaming
from his nostrils, bubbling from his lips as he breathed with
wide-gasping mouth. He stood so a little while, then collapsed with
sudden failing, no strength in him to ease the fall.

Carlson turned to face Mackenzie, his icy mirth spent.

"It's you?" he said. "Well, by God, it's a man, anyhow!"

Carlson offered his hand as if in friendship. Mackenzie backed away,
watchful of him, hand to his pistol.

"Who's in that room, Carlson?" he asked.

"Maybe nobody," Swan replied. "We'll fight to see who opens the
door--what?"

There was an eager gleam in Carlson's face as he made this proposal,
standing between Mackenzie and the closed door, his arm stretched out
as if to bar the schoolmaster's nearer approach. He bent toward
Mackenzie, no hostility in his manner or expression, but rather more
like a man who had made a friendly suggestion, the answer to which he
waited in pleasurable anticipation.

Mackenzie looked at him coldly, measuring his great strength, weighing
his magnificent body down to the last unit of its power. Carlson's
shirt was open at his throat, his laced boots came to his knees over
his baggy corduroy trousers, his long red hair hung over his temples
and ears.

"No, there's been fighting enough," Mackenzie said, thinking that Joan
must be bound and gagged if in that room. Surely she would have spoken
otherwise at the sound of his voice.

Hertha Carlson rose to her hands and knees, where she remained a spell
like a creeping child, almost at Mackenzie's feet. Reid lay where he
had sunk down, pitched forward in front of the closed door.

"I'll open it, then," said Swan