figures he had ever seen. In a flash he saw the huge form of an
Indian, a terrible face, the gleam of an uplifted knife. In such a
crisis one's actions are involuntary, machine-like, as if life itself,
hovering by a thread, protects itself in its own manner without
thought or reasoning on the part of the human creature it animates.
Rod neither thought nor reasoned; without any motive on his own part,
he flung himself face downward upon the cabin floor. And the move
saved him. With a guttural cry the savage leaped toward him, struck
out with his knife and missed, stumbled over the boy's prostrate form
and fell beside him.

Months of hardship and adventure in the wilderness had made Rod as
lithe as a forest cat, his muscles like steel. Without rising he flung
himself upon his enemy, his own knife raised in gleaming death above
the savage's breast. But the Woonga was as quick. Like a flash he
struck up with one of his powerful arms and the force of the blow that
was descending upon him fell to the earth floor. In another instant
his free arm had encircled Rod's neck, and for a few brief moments the
two were locked in a crushing embrace, neither being able to use the
weapon in his hand without offering an advantage to the other.

In that respite, which only death could follow, Rod's brain worked
with the swiftness of fire. He was lying face downward upon his enemy;
the Woonga was flat upon his back, the latter's knife hand stretched
out behind his head with Rod's knife hand locking it. For either to
strike a blow both of their fighting hands must be freed. In the first
instant of that freedom, the savage, with his arm already extended,
could deliver a blow sooner than his antagonist, who would have to
raise his arm as well as strike. In other words, by the time Rod's
knife was poised his enemy's would be buried in his breast. With a