The burned canoe had only hastened the hour a
little. Suddenly Jan's free hand reached behind him to his belt. He drew
forth the second knife and tossed it at O'Grady's feet.
O'Grady made a movement to pick it up, and then, while Jan was partly off
his guard, came at him with a powerful swing of the club. It was his
catlike quickness, the quickness almost of the great northern loon that
evades a rifle ball, that had won for Jan in the forest fight. It saved
him now. The club cut through the air over his head, and, carried by the
momentum of his own blow, O'Grady lurched against him with the full force
of his two hundred pounds of muscle and bone. Jan's knife swept in an
upward flash and plunged to the hilt through the flesh of his enemy's
forearm. With a cry of pain O'Grady dropped his club, and the two crashed
to the stone floor of the trail. This was the attack that Jan had feared
and tried to foil, and with a lightning-like squirming movement he swung
himself half free, and on his back, with O'Grady's huge hands linking at
his throat, he drew back his knife arm for the fatal plunge.
In this instant, so quick that he could scarcely have taken a breath in
the time, his eyes took in the other struggle between Jackpine and the
Chippewayan. The two Indians had locked themselves in a deadly embrace.
All thought of masters, of life or death, were forgotten in the roused-up
hatred that fired them now in their desire to kill.
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