The contest that followed was carried on on the very edge of the precipice, and was long and desperate. Archie, bruised and battered in a hundred places, and weary with a night's travel, was scarcely a match for the fresh and vigorous Arthur, who, in his blind rage, seemed determined to fulfill his threat of throwing him over the cliff after the gun. Fortune favored first one and then the other; but Archie's indomitable courage and long wind carried the day, and he finally succeeded in bearing his antagonist to the ground and holding him there.
"You are not going to throw me over, are you?" gasped Arthur, who was humble enough, now that he had been worsted.
"Do you take me for a savage?" panted Archie, in reply. "I simply wanted to save myself from a whipping that I did not deserve, and I've done it. Now you must go to the settlement with me, to"—
"Here you are!" exclaimed a familiar voice. "Let us see if you will escape me again."
Archie looked up, and saw Antoine Mercedes advancing upon him.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CONCLUSION.
Archie had been so fully occupied with the traitor that he had not thought of his other enemies, and for a moment he lay upon the ground beside his antagonist, gazing at Antoine in speechless amazement. Resistance, of course, was not to be thought of, and it also seemed useless to make any attempts at escape; for he had been so nearly exhausted by his struggle with Arthur, that he scarcely possessed the power to rise from the ground. "I am caught easy enough," thought he, "and I might as well give up first as last."