“When the snake, Sonora Jack, would have put his coals of fire on the naked breast of the Indian, he required the help of two others. If I, Natachee, could not alone kill a snake, I would die of shame. The one who frightened Sonora Jack and his brave friends so that they ran like rabbits into the brush is here. But Natachee is not bound to a rock now. Sonora Jack need not fear the one from whom he and his brothers ran in such haste. Hugh Edwards will not point his rifle toward the snake that I, Natachee, will kill.
“Sonora Jack boasted that with live coals of fire he would burn the heart out of Natachee’s breast. There is no fire here, but here is a knife. Sonora Jack also has a knife. Let the snake, who was so brave with his two brother snakes when they hid in Natachee’s hut and bound the Indian to a rock, keep his heart from the knife of the Indian now—if he can.”
The two men were by no means unevenly matched in stature or in strength. Both were men whose muscles had been hardened by their active lives in the desert and the mountains. Both were skilled in the use of the knife as a weapon. Sonora Jack fought with the desperate fury of a cornered animal. The Indian, cool and calculating, seemed in no haste to finish that which in his savage pride he had set himself to accomplish. So swiftly did the duelists change positions, so closely were they locked together as they wheeled and twisted in their struggles, that the white man, who was trembling with tense excitement, could not have used his rifle if he would. At his repeated failures to touch the Indian with his knife, the outlaw lost, more and more, his self-control, until he was fighting with reckless and ungoverned madness. Natachee, wary and collected, smiled grimly as he saw the fear in the straining face of his enemy.
Then twice, in quick succession, the point of the Indian’s knife reached the outlaw’s breast but with no effect. Edwards gasped in dismay as he saw the baffled look which came into Natachee’s face. Again the Indian, with all the strength of his arm, drove his weapon at the outlaw’s heart and again Sonora Jack was unharmed. Suddenly the Indian changed his method of attack. To Edwards, the duel seemed to become a wrestling match. For a moment they struggled, locked in each other’s arms, their limbs entwined, writhing and straining. Then they fell, and to Edwards’ horror, the Indian was under the outlaw. But the next instant, while Sonora Jack was struggling to free his knife arm for a death blow, the Indian, hugging his antagonist close, forced his weapon between Sonora Jack’s shoulders.
The muscles of the outlaw relaxed—his body became limp. Natachee rolled to one side and leaped to his feet. As if he had forgotten the solitary witness of the combat, the Indian calmly recovered his knife and stood looking down at the man who was already dead.
Sick with horror of the thing he had been forced to witness, Hugh Edwards called to the Indian:
“Come, Natachee, for God’s sake let’s get away from here.”
“The snake that crawled into Natachee’s hut is dead,” returned the Indian. “The stealer of women will not again steal the woman Hugh Edwards loves.”
Hugh was already starting back to the place where they had left Marta. When he noticed that the Indian was not following, he paused to call again:
“Aren’t you coming?”