ine stood up like
bristles.

Then Miki stopped, and in that moment Durant saw the end of all his
hopes. Without a sound the wolf-dog was at his opponent. A bellow rose
from Grouse Piet's lips. A deep breath passed through the circle of
spectators, and Durant felt a cold chill run up his back to the roots
of his hair. What happened in the next instant made men's hearts stand
still. In that first rush Miki should have died. Grouse Piet expected
him to die, and Durant expected him to die. But in the last fractional
bit of the second in which the wolf-dog's jaws closed, Miki was
transformed into a thing of living lightning. No man had ever seen a
movement swifter than that with which he turned on Taao. Their jaws
clashed. There was a sickening grinding of bone, and in another moment
they were rolling and twisting together on the earth floor. Neither
Grouse Piet nor Durant could see what was happening. They forgot even
their own bets in the horror of that fight. Never had there been such a
fight at Fort O' God.

The sound of it reached to the Company's store. In the door, looking
toward the big cage, stood the young white man. He heard the snarling,
the clashing of teeth, and his jaws set heavily and a dull flame burned
in his eyes. His breath came in a sudden gasp.

"DAMN!" he cried, softly.

His hands clenched, and he stepped slowly down from the door and went
toward the cage. It was over when he made his way through the ring of
spectators. The fight had ended as suddenly as it had begun, and Grouse
Piet's wolf-dog lay in the centre of the cage with a severed jugular.
Miki looked as though he might be dying. Durant had opened the door and
had slipped a rope over his head, and outside the cage Miki stood
swaying on his feet, red with blood, and half blind. His flesh was red
and bleeding in a dozen places, and a stream of blood trickled from his
mouth. A cry of horror rose to the young white man's lips as he looked
down at him.

And then, almost in the same breath, there came a still stranger cry.

"Good God! Miki--Miki--Miki--"

Beating upon his brain as if from a vast distance, coming to him
through the blindness of his wounds, Miki heard that voice.

The VOICE! THE voice that had lived with him in all his dreams, the
voice he had waited for, and searched for, and knew that some day he
would find. The voice of Challoner, his master!

He dropped on his belly, whining, trying to see through the film of
blood in h