in the same glowing eagerness. "It'll
be a game--whatever I find I'll keep!"

"Don't touch it!" Mackenzie warned, drawing a little nearer, his
weapon half out of the scabbard.

Mrs. Carlson rose between them, tall, disheveled, dress torn open at
her bosom. She seemed dazed and oblivious to what was passing, stood a
moment, hands pressed to her face as one racked by an agony of pain,
went to the door, and out. Carlson stood staring after her a breath,
his bold chin lifted high, a look of surprise passing like a light
over his eyes.

"What I find will be mine," Carlson said, almost happily. "Come
on--we'll fight like a couple of men!"

Carlson thrust his hand into the bosom of his shirt as he spoke, and
drew out a revolver with a long sweep of his mighty arm, throwing his
body with the movement as if he rocked with a wild, mad joy. Mackenzie
fired as Carlson lifted the weapon to throw it down for a shot.
Carlson's pistol fell from his shattered hand.

Swan stood a moment, that flickering light of surprise flashing in his
eyes again. Then he threw back his head and shouted in the mad joy of
his wild heart, his great mouth stretched wide, his great mustaches
moving in his breath. Shouting still, as his Viking forebears shouted
in the joy of battle, the roar of his great voice going far into the
night, Swan rushed upon Mackenzie like a wounded bear.

Mackenzie gave back before him, leaping aside, firing. Checked a
moment, more by the flash of the discharge in his eyes than by the
bullet, it seemed, Swan roared a wilder note and pressed the charge.
His immense, lunging body was dim before Mackenzie through the smoke,
his uninjured hand groping like a man feeling for a door in a burning
house.

Swan fell with the mad challenge on his tongue, and cried his
defiance still as he writhed a moment on his back, turning his face to
the open door and the peace of the night at last, to die. To die in
greater heroism than he had lived, and to lie there in his might and
wasted magnificence of body, one hand over the threshold dabbling in
the dark.

Mackenzie took the lantern from the corner where Reid had set it in
his studious play for the advantage that did not come to his hand, and
turned back to the closed door. Reid lay as he had fallen, Carlson's
revolver by his side. Mackenzie stepped over him and tried the door.
It was unlocked, fastened only by the iron thumb-latch.

A moment Mackenzie stood, lifting the lantern to