The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 1 — page 132: what you’re looking at

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ae . a 7 - 122 and gave another jerk that pulled his feet out from under him again. There was one thing I had overlooked. It nearly cost me my life now. As I have stated, I had made the rope fast to my wrist before I went to sleep and had not loosed it. Now I found that two could play at this game. Hearing nothikg more from the fallen gladiator, I rose to my feet, peering in his direction. A tremendous jerk set me running toward him. I braced my feet and tried to stop my progress, but a sec- ond pull broke my hold. I sank to the ground and tried to stay my course, taking advantage of every inequality of the ground, but to no avail. It was the old game of tug of war, and weight counted. The knot I had tied had jammed by this time so that I could not loosen it. My knife was in a pocket I could not reach with my free hand. Never, I believe, had man known better the sensation of a well-hooked fish at the end of a stout line. I was being drawn ~ toward as certain death as fish ever was. And now I was jerked forward, face down, and dragged bedily toward the big brute-man. Something under me prodded me cruelly in the ribs. Instinetively I felt for it, and my hand rested on the club J had thrust into my belt. And what happened now was crowded into so brief a space that I have difficulty in giving a coherent picture of it. I remember hearing the labored breathing of the Brute as he drew me toward him, followed by his exultant curse as he saw me within his grasp. Perhaps like other beasts of prey, he had the instinct to play with his victim before destroying it. At least, I felt the rope slacken for a moment, and in that moment got to my feet. The pressure was renewed with a vio- lence that impelled me to within reach of him. He seized my bound wrist with one hand and grasped for my throat with the other.@ I knew that death was in that grasp THE ARGOSY. if it ever got home. With every ounce of my strength I twirled the club and brought it down on his extended wrist. I did not need his hoarse cry of pain to tell me that I had broken his arm. But even this was not enough for this great fighting brute. With a quickness that caught me off my guard, his sound hand closed about my throat with fingers of steel. Wildly I struck for his head. There must have been good stuff in that stick of hickory, fer Brute Flanagan’s great hulk sank in- ertly to earth and lay there. When I look back on that night [I wonder if civilization is not, after all, the child of the generation and not of the age. doubt if ever man of the stone age felt more momentary satisfaction over fallen foe than I when I saw Brute Flana- gan go down. I wanted to strut about, to swagger. I had conquered in fair fight Brute Flanagan, hitherto sovereign, in this little world of ours, and I was king. That I had nearly lost my life in doing so made the victory the more glorious. That Brute Flanagan himself might now be dead caused me no compunction—at the time. The timid, fearful voice of Elizabeth Norcross brought me a new sense of ela- tion. She had seen me crushed and broken by this brute, and now she was to know me as his conqueror. “ Mr. Manforth!”’ she called. “Tt is all right,” I answered a trifle unsteadily, for I was exhausted from my struggle. “ He won’t bother you again.” “ Oh! +P I dared to believe that the world of relief im her voice was the result of her knowledge of my safety. Then the woman came to the fore. “You haven’t—killed him, have you?”’ she queried in a hushed tone. E believed I had, and began to feel sorry for it. After all he was a human being. His inert bulk, stretched on the ground, appealed through its very help- lessness. He had deserved punishment, but that ‘ EORMICLOOOKS (C@)