Then they closed in a hand to hand struggle. Antone bent his head and sent his teeth deep into Mead’s arm. Into the flesh they sank and met and with a slipping sound tore the solid muscle from its bed. Then there flamed in Emerson Mead’s heart that wild, white rage that mettles the nerves and steels the muscles of him who suffers that indignity. He felt the strength of a giant in his arms as he gripped the Mexican by both shoulders. In another minute Antone Colorow was flat upon the ground and Emerson Mead was sitting on his chest.
“You hound!” Mead exclaimed, “I ought to kill you, and by the living God, I would if I could do it decently! But I’m no Greaser, to use lariats and knives and boot-heels, and so you get off this time, you beast! If I had a rope,” he went on, “I’d tie you here!”
With his right hand he grasped Antone’s two wrists while he thrust his left into his pockets in search of something with which he could bind the fallen man. From the side pocket of his coat he drew a shiny, snaky black thing, and a satisfied “ah!” broke from his lips as he saw the Chinaman’s queue, which Nick Ellhorn had forgotten, and which he had put into that pocket two weeks before.
As he held it in his hands Marguerite Delarue came running over the hill. Her sunbonnet hung by its strings around her neck, her hair had come down and was streaming over her shoulders, her dress hung in rags and tatters, and she was panting and almost breathless. She had hurried on behind Mead as rapidly as she could walk, until she heard the first pistol shot. Then, fearful of trouble, she had run as fast as possible, stopping at nothing, her anxiety giving speed to her feet and endurance to her muscles.
The look of savage triumph on Mead’s face made her shrink back for an instant, awed and frightened. But her comprehension quickly took in what had happened and her heart rose in sympathetic exultation.
“You are just in time,” said Mead, “and I’m mighty glad. I’ll have to ask you to sit on this man’s chest and hold him down while I tie him fast to that mesquite.”
Marguerite sat down on the Mexican’s breast while Mead tied his wrists tightly together and then began fastening them to the stocky stem of the bush beside which he had fallen. Antone struggled and tried to throw her off, and Mead said:
“I think, Miss Delarue, you’d better put your thumbs on his windpipe and press a little, just to keep him from fighting too hard. We’ve got no time to waste on him.”
Marguerite gasped and hesitated, but her eye fell on little Paul’s unconscious figure, and she did as he asked her.
“There,” said Mead. “Now get up and jump quickly away.”