in that instant of
1 horror, mary thorne found time to be thankful that terror struck her momentarily dumb. for now, with lips parted and a cry of warning trembling there, she saw that it was too late. like a pointer freezing to the
2, lynch's whole body had
3; one hand gripped the leveled colt, a finger
4 the trigger. at this
5 a cry would almost surely bring that tiny, muscular
6 which might be fatal.
from behind the
7 8's hat had disappeared, and a faint creak of saddle-leather told the girl that he had dismounted and by so doing must have moved a trifle out of range.
sick with horror and desperation, the girl's eye fell upon a stone lying at her feet--a jagged piece of
9 perhaps twice the size of a baseball. in a flash she dropped the
10-reins and, bending, caught it up stealthily.
11 12 his ears forward, but with a
13,
14 touch of one hand against his sweaty neck, mary steadied herself for a moment, slowly drew back her arm, and, with a
15, silent prayer for strength, she
16 the stone.
it grazed lynch's face and struck his wrist with a force that jerked up the barrel of the revolver. the
17 of flame, the sharp crack of the shot, the
18 of the colt striking the edge of the
19, all seemed to the girl to come
20. a belated second
21 lynch's furious curses came to her. with
22 eyes she saw him snatch
24 at the sliding weapon, and as it toppled out of sight into the cañon barely an inch ahead of his clutching, striving fingers, she thrilled with sudden fierce joy.
"curse you!" he frothed, springing up and rushing at her. "you--"
"buck!" she screamed. "quick! his gun's gone! he--"
a blow from his fist struck her mouth and flung her backward against the horse. half fainting, she saw freckles lunge over her shoulder and heard the vicious click of his teeth snapping together. but lynch, ducking out of reach of the angry horse, caught mary about the waist and dragged her toward the precipice.
involuntarily she closed her eyes. when she opened them again, stirred by the curious silence and the sudden cessation of all movement, she found herself staring
26 into the face of buck green.
he stood very quietly just inside the narrow entrance to the ledge, not more than ten feet from her. in one hand was a six-shooter; the other hung straight at his side, the fingers tightly
27. as he met her bewildered glance, his eyes
28 tenderly and the corners of his lips curved in a
29,
30 smile. then
31 his face froze again.
"yuh take another step an' down she'll go," said a
32 voice close to the girl's ear.
it was lynch; and mary, her senses clearing, knew whose hands gripped her so tightly that she could scarcely breathe. glancing sidewise, she hastily
33 her eyes. she was
34 within six inches of the edge of the precipice. for the first time she could look down into those sheer depths, and even that hurried glimpse made her shiver.
"well, i admit you've got the
35 on me, as it were." buck's voice suddenly broke the silence. "still, i don't see how you're going to get out of this hole. you can't stand like this forever."
mary stared at him, amazed at his cool, drawling, matter-of-fact tone. she was still more puzzled to note that he seemed to be
36 with his revolver in a manner which seemed, to say the least,
37 careless.
"i can stand here till i get tired," retorted lynch. "after that-- well, i'd as soon end up down there as get a bullet through my
38. one thing, i wouldn't go alone."
"suppose i offered to let you go free if you give up miss thorne?" stratton asked with sudden earnestness.
"offer? hell! yuh can't fool me with that kind of talk. not unless yuh hand over yore gun, that is. do that, an' i might consider the proposition--not otherwise."
buck hesitated, his eyes flashing from the weapon he whirled so carelessly between his fingers to lynch, whose eyes regarded him intently over the girl's shoulder.
"that would be putting an awful lot of trust in you," he commented. "once you had the gun, what's to prevent you from drilling me--oh, damn!"
he made a sudden, ineffectual grab at the gun, which had slipped from his fingers, and missed. as the weapon
39 against the rocks, lynch's
40 glance followed it involuntarily. what happened next was a bewildering whirl of violent, unexpected action.
to mary it seemed as if buck cleared the space between them in a single amazing leap. he landed with one foot slipping on the
25 edge of the precipice, and
41 threw his whole weight sidewise against lynch and the girl he held. just how it happened she did not know, but in another moment mary found herself freed from those hateful, gripping hands and flung back against her horse, while at her feet the two men grappled
43.
over and over on the narrow confines of the sloping ledge they struggled fiercely, heaving, panting, with muscles cracking, each seemingly
44 with a grim determination to thrust the other into the abyss. now buck was uppermost; again lynch, by some clever trick, tore himself from stratton's hold to gain a momentary advantage.
like one
45 in the
46 of some hateful nightmare, the girl
47 against her horse, her face so still and white and ghastly that it might well have been some clever sculptor's bizarre conception of "horror" done in marble. only her eyes seemed to live. wide, dilated, glittering with an
48 light, they shifted constantly, following the progress of those two
49 bodies.
once, when lynch's horse snorted and moved uneasily, she caught his bridle and quieted him with a
50 word, her voice so choked and hoarse that she scarcely knew it. again, as the men rolled toward the outer side of the ledge and seemed for a moment almost to overhang the precipice, she gave a
51 cry and
52 forward, moved by some wild impulse to fling her
53 strength into the scale against the
54.
but with a heave of his big body, buck saved himself as he had done more than once before, and the struggle was resumed. back and
55 they fought, over and over around that narrow space, until mary was filled with the dazed feeling that it had been going on for ever, that it would never end.
but not for an instant did she cease to follow every tiny variation of the
56, and of a sudden she gave another cry. gripped in a fierce embrace, the two men rolled toward the entrance to the ledge, and all at once mary saw one of lynch's hands close over and instantly seize the revolver buck had dropped there.
instantly she darted forward and tried to
57 it from his grasp. finding his strength too great, she straightened swiftly and lifting one foot, brought her riding boot down fiercely with all her strength on lynch's hand. with a smothered
58 his fingers laxed, and she caught up the weapon and stepped quickly back, wondering, if lynch came uppermost, whether she would dare to try to shoot him.
no
59 now
60 her. these had vanished
61, and with them fear, nervousness,
62, and every thought of self. for the moment she was like the
63 42, willing to do anything on earth to save--her man! but so closely were the two men entwined that she was afraid if she shot at lynch the bullet might injure buck.
once more the fight
64 close to the precipice. lynch was again uppermost; and, whether by his greater strength, or from some injury buck had sustained against the rocks, the girl was seized by a horrible conviction that he had the upper hand. knees gripping stratton about the body, hands circling his throat, lynch, apparently
65 to the blows rained on his chest and neck, was slowly but surely forcing his opponent over the ragged
66 of the ledge. it was at this instant that the
23 girl discovered that her weapon had suffered some damage when it fell and was quite useless.
already buck's head overhung the precipice, his face a dark, strangled red. flinging the revolver from her, mary rushed forward and began to beat lynch wildly with her small, clenched fists.
but she might as effectually have tried to move a rooted tree, and with a strangled cry, she wound her fingers in his coarse black hair and strove with all her strength to drag lynch back.
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