From one of the mansions farther up the street, a child had strayed, a baby girl, a fragile, black-haired little thing, not more than five years old. Shrieking with laughter, she had eluded her mother and run out through the gateway to the center of the road. Half-way across the pavement, she slipped and fell. Down the street on thundering hoofs came the great bronze death.
Upsetting one of the drivers in his haste, Polaris leaped down over the wheel of the car. Scarcely had his feet touched the roadway, when Minos, the Sardanian, was down behind him. Snatching a short spear from the hand of one of the steel riders, the son of the snows bounded up the street to meet the bull, going at a speed which few living things could have equaled. Over his shoulder he called to Minos:
"Care for the child, Minos; leave the beast to me."
Just beyond where the baby girl lay, he met the furious mass of charging flesh. The little red eyes of the oncoming monster saw the man in its path, and for an instant the bull seemed to halt in its stride, and its hoofs slid on the smooth pavement. Then it lowered its head still farther and charged on with a roar.
From the tail of his eye, Janess saw the Sardanian snatch the baby from the perilous path and leap to one side. Behind them the red captain, shouting and cursing, alone of all the troop of riders strove to urge his affrighted horse forward.
"Hold! Hold!" he shouted in English. "Let the beast go!"
Even had he heard, Polaris would have been little minded to let the bull go free. It was plain that the animal was mad. A bloody froth dripped from its jaws as it ran. Behind the son of the snows, right where the bull was headed, were his friends, and among them one who meant more to him than all of the rest of the world.
Directly in the path of the lowered horns, that were coming on with the power of a mighty battering-ram, Polaris stood. Then he sprang sidewise, turning as he leaped. So narrowly did he time the onset that the shoulder of the bull grazed his knee. As the huge body passed him, the man drove the short spear home behind its shoulder, guiding the steel with the strength of arm and the keenness of eye that had helped him to survive through the long years when combat with the beasts of the wild was a part almost of his daily existence.
The stroke was true. So deeply did the steel spear bite, that its shaft was wrenched from the hands of Polaris, and he was pitched on his side on the pavement.