No blow landed on the point of the jaw, on the neck, on the heart, or the pit of the stomach—blows that bring the quiet of oblivion; but each landed with a cutting twist that ground into the flesh.
At last, with his face beaten to a crimson pulp, Moncrossen sagged to his knees, tried to rise, and crashed limp and lifeless to the ground. And over him stood Bill Carmody, smiling down at the broken and battered wreck of the bad man of the logs.
Gradually the circle that surrounded the fighters broke into little groups of white-faced, silent men who shot nervous, inquiring glances into each other's faces and swore softly under their breath—the foolish, meaningless oaths of excitement.
Minutes passed as Ethel stood gazing in terrible fascination from the big man to the thing on the ground at his feet. And as she looked, a hideous old squaw, apparently too weak to stand, struggled from her place of vantage among the feet of the men, and crawled to the limp, sprawled form.
Leaning close she peered into the shapeless features, crooning and gurgling, and emitting short, sharp whines of delight. Her beady eyes glittered wickedly, like the eyes of a snake, and the withered lips curled into a horrid grin, exposing the purple snag-toothed gums.
Suddenly the bent form knelt upright, the skeleton arms raised high above the tangle of gray-black hair, the thin, high-pitched voice quavered the words of a weird chant, the clawlike fingers twitched in short, jerky spasms, and the emaciated body swayed and weaved to the wild, barbaric rhythm of the chanted curse.
Terrible, blighting, the words were borne to the ears of the girl. Bearded men looked, listened, and turned away, shuddering. The sun burst suddenly through a rift in the flying clouds, and his golden radiance fell incongruously upon the scene.
Ethel gazed as at some horrid phantasm—the rough men with gaudy shirts of red and blue and multicolored checks, standing in groups with tense, set faces—the other man—her man—standing alone, silent and smiling, by the side of his blood-bathed victim, and the old crone, whose marcid form writhed in the swing of the thin-shrieked chant.
And then before she sensed that he had moved he stood before her. She raised her eyes to his in which the hard, cold gleam had given place to a look of intense longing, of infinite love, and the long-pent yearning of a soul.
He stretched his arms toward her and she saw that the bruised and swollen hands were stained with blood. Suddenly she realized that this man was her husband. A sickening fear overcame her, and she shrank, shuddering, from the touch of the blood-smeared hands.