Seymour charged down the incline. "Coming, Moira!" he shouted.
The breed heard and flung his intended victim from him to the rocks. One glance at the oncoming figure enlightened him. "Wolves run in pairs!" he exclaimed. "And die together!"
Moira saw him draw a revolver. Had he fired from the hip, her opportunity never would have come. But Bonnemort, confident in the distance that still separated him from the unknown rescuer, paused to take aim. The girl's fingers had closed around a rock. With all her might she hurled it at his head.
Her aim was poor, but its faultiness proved fortunate. The missile struck Bonnemort's wrist as his finger pressed the trigger. The bullet went wild. The gun was knocked from his hand and was thrown, by some muscular freak, within Moira's reach.
For a second, Bonnemort stood nursing his injured wrist; then, with a snarled curse, he sprang to recover his weapon. But Seymour, at the end of his rush, crowded him off; the girl seized the gun and scrambled to her feet.
She could not understand why the sergeant did not draw and declare himself. As the enemy already had fired, he was no longer under restraint of that Quixotic slogan.
Bonnemort, too, looked puzzled, but evidently took heart from his foe's restraint, for he advanced threateningly. Fearing that Seymour would be no match in a rough-and-tumble, Moira tried to press the miner's gun upon him, but the sergeant waved her back.
"Hold off the Siwashes," he demanded. "This brute has a beating coming to him."
Bonnemort advanced with a chortle of joy, delighted that luck favored him with the respite of physical combat. So many things could happen in a battle of fists. The man-to-man struggle was on.
After his initial rush, which the sergeant cleverly side-stepped, the breed's main idea seemed to be to throw his powerful arms about his opponent. Except for occasional swings, which would have knocked Seymour out had they found their mark, his efforts were directed to this end.