Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1915-12-31

and TRANSPORTED with the lust for
blood.
Kill themi" she painted desper-
ately, kill them both! Blood for
Preacher and she would ruin you'll
Shoot them, Sandry. shoot them-or
give me the gun!"
S~huddering, Sandry covered her
savage eyes with his hand. Their
reversion sickened him. But she
shook him loose, crying for death.
xiii them both, for they will ruin
you If they go free! She's got the
packet. Kill her and get the packet"
What's this?" he cried hoarsely.
Things she has written about you
a-letter to a man by the name of
Musseldorn!"
Slowly Sandry's face went white
beneath it's CRIME as he raised his
eyes and looked at Poppy Ordway.
She returned his gaze.
Then "True," she said, that's
why | went east. / cannot lose you,
Walter. There a danger from that
wild creature there, though you did
not know 1t, and / was determined to
make sure. Fair means or foul
must win. And there's no law for a
genius. 1 know and you know that
you are"
Guilty." he said, throwing up his
head.
Then Sandry dropped his eyes to
Siletz and spoke as If he obeyed
some compelling power, some urge to
justify himself before her.
Il answer to the Right Law l
obeyed the ancient Right Law, little
S'letz, and l have no regrets"
Il knowi" cried Siletz, 81 knowi"
the smoke al so dense that the
actors in this drama could scarcely
see each others faces, but they took
no note Of it. The climbing roar had
shut them apart in a sound-made ST.
lence and they did not know it. Only
Hampden, edging sidewise, was alive
to the possibilities of the moment.
He saw the gun hanging in Sandry's
hand, forgotten. He saw Siletz de-
vouring his face with her blazing
eyes of passion. He saw his moment
and took it.
With one great bound he flung him
self high in the air, leaped the space
between and came down with his
great weight upon the shoulders of
the other man, ~clutching for back and
throat, drawing the one to him in a
grip of iron, pushing the other away.
Sandry went down like a reed, and
as his knees buckled under him there
was an cminous' snap. The bone of
his right leg, newly healed and fragile,
gave way under the strain.
As the two men fell, both guns, the
III in Sandry's hand and the n in
his trousers band, tumbled loosely
apart. Siletz, clinging still to San.
dry's knees, was borne down with
them. AS they rolled over she tore
herself from under them and with
two sweeps of her outspread arms
gathered the guns. Then she sprang
up, drawing back a pace, her eyes like
fire, and deliberately sought for q
chance to kill Hampden.
But the men were a struggling mass
Of turning. twisting, writhing flesh,
each SO wound about the other that
to shoot one meant the others death
as well: Over and over they rolled,
now almost on the silent form under
the ferns, now pushing Poppy Ordway
back into the low spruces. And all
the time Siletz followed them with the
moving muzzle of the gun, her face a
mask of fury and the passion of the
primal woman who battles for her
mate.
"Sandry," she cried, lie fiat! Lie
fiat!"
From under Hampden's arm that
was choking the breath from his
lungs the owner saw that slim fig
ure of doom and strove to cry out. At
last he got his voice for a moment.
"Siletz!" he rasped, don't shoot. |
command you, don't kill" But the
bark of the gun drowned his words.
She was firing around them.
With the first shot Hampden, re-
membering the guns that he had
failed to get, felt his flesh rise on his
body and he loosened his hold. shook
off Sandry and got to his feet, painting,
fighting mad, his eyes red and awful.
With the courage Of the raging bull
he made straight for Siletz, who fired
point blank at him. He took the ball
in his shoulder and spun half round.
The girl pulled the trigger again. got
an empty snap, threw the weapon
away and raised the other.
"Siletz!" shrieked Sandry from the
ground, "for my sake stop!"
1t was a command, a cry of owner
ship, and it went straight to that part
of her nature which had obeyed for
generations. She hesitated, holding
the man across the barrel.
AS for Hampden, he stood, waver-
ing drunkenly, chuckling in his throat,