He launched himself, after the fashion of a football tackle,
straight for the descending arm. And, for a few seconds all
three men rolled and wallowed and fought in a jumble of flying
arms and legs and heads.

Brice had been lucky enough or dextrous enough to catch the
knife-wielder's wrist and to wrench it far to one side, as it
whizzed downward. With his other hand he had groped for the
slayer's throat.

Then, he found himself attacked with a maniac fury by the man
whose murderous purpose he had thwarted. Still gripping the
knife-wrist, he was sore put to it to fend off an avalanche of
blows from the other arm and of kicks from both of the
assailant's deftly plied feet.

Nor was his task made the easier by the fact that Milo
Standish had recovered from the momentary daze, and was
slugging impartially at both the men who rolled and tossed on
top of him.

This, for a short but excessively busy space of moments.
Then, wriggling free of Milo's impeding and struggling bulk,
Brice gained the throat-hold he sought. Still holding to the
ground the wrist of the knifehand, he dug his supple fingers
deep into the man's throat, disregarding such blows and kicks
as he could not ward off.

There was science in his ferocious onslaught. And his skilled
fingers had found the windpipe and the carotid artery as well.