Dickie Lang reeled backward as the red-bearded man shoved her from him. She felt the eel-grass slipping beneath her feet. Striving vainly to regain her balance, she turned cat-like in the air and broke the fall with her hands. As she rebounded to her feet she could see Gregory wrestling with the man who had precipitated the attack. Close by his side, Tom Howard grappled with the scar-faced islander. The third man lay huddled on the rocks where he had fallen.
Dickie decided at once upon her course of action. Gregory and Howard were holding their own against the two men. It was up to her to see that the third of the islanders did not come to the rescue of his companions. The man might regain consciousness at any moment. Then there would be three against two. She remembered suddenly that there was rope on the Petrel. Better than that there was a rifle. It was but a few steps to the launch. She covered it quickly, caught the main-stay and pulled herself aboard.
Kenneth Gregory realized at the outset that he was up against a hard fight. In his hurry to close with the red-bearded man, his foot had slipped on the slimy grass and he had been forced to clinch to save himself from falling. This placed him at a marked disadvantage. His opponent had the best of him in weight by at least twenty pounds and was heavily muscled. Moreover he possessed a certain agility on the grass-covered rocks which rendered any attempt on Gregory's part to force the battle, as extremely hazardous. The islander, at home on the slippery footing, from the start, became the aggressor.
For a time Gregory was content merely to hold his feet against Red-beard's rushes and retain his hold on the islander's knife-arm, should he be possessed of a weapon. Men of that type, he reasoned, were usually short-winded. In time the heavier man would exhaust himself. Then his turn would come. Ahead he noticed a clear space, free from grass. The solid rock would afford good footing. There he would have a better chance.
If the islander was determined to crowd, he might as well crowd in the right direction. Gregory changed front slowly, working his body around the heavier man, giving way before his bull-like rushes. When he reached the position he desired, he checked his circling movement and began to retreat steadily. Keeping his feet wide apart, his body carefully balanced, he backed slowly in the direction of the spot where the grass would no longer slip beneath his feet.
On the other side of the ledge, Tom Howard battled with the scar-faced man. Of equal weight and strength, the struggle resolved itself into a question of endurance, as the two men rolled over each other on the barnacled rocks in an effort to break the other's grip and strengthen his own. Unconscious of their surroundings, their heads locked close to their straining bodies, they grappled blindly, working closer to a deep crevice which lay across their path. For a brief instant they ceased struggling. Their bodies stiffened. With each man seeking to pin the other beneath him they rolled to the crevice and dropped from view.
Dickie, aboard the boat, flashed a glance at the gun-rack. The rifle was gone. The patent-clasp which held the weapon in place had been wrenched free. Her eyes traveled to the empty provision-locker, which stood open. Close by it lay a small monkey-wrench with which some one had battered the padlock.
A wrench would be better than nothing. She caught it up and ran to the deck. Securing a small coil of rope, she jumped to the rocks and raced in the direction of the spot where the weasel-faced man had fallen.