"Bah, this is like striking a baby!" exclaimed Dixon. "What are you fighting about, Gravois? Is it a crime up here to kiss a pretty girl?"
"I am going to kill you!" said Jean as coolly as before.
There was something terribly calm and decisive in his voice. He was not excited. He was not afraid. His fingers did not go near the long knife in his belt. Slowly the laugh faded from Dixon's face, and tense lines gathered around his mouth as Jean circled about him.
"Come, we don't want trouble like this," he urged. "I'm sorry—if
Mélisse didn't like it."
"I am going to kill you!" repeated Jean.
There was an appalling confidence in his eyes. From those eyes Dixon found himself retreating rather than from the man. They followed him, never taking themselves from his face. The fire in them grew deeper. Two dull red spots began to glow in Jean's cheeks, and he laughed softly when he suddenly leaped in so that the Englishman struck at him—and missed.
It was the science of the forest man pitted against that of another world. For sport Jean had played with wounded lynx; his was the quickness of sight, of instinct—without the other's science; the quickness of the great loon that had often played this same game with his rifle-fire, of the sledge-dog whose ripping fangs carried death so quickly that eyes could not follow.
A third and a fourth time he came within striking distance, and escaped. He half drew his knife, and at the movement Dixon sprang back until his shoulders touched the brush. Smilingly Gravois unsheathed the blade and tossed it behind him in the trail. His eyes were like a serpent's in their steadiness, and the muscles of his body were drawn as tight as steel springs, ready to loose themselves when the chance came.
There were tricks in his fighting as well as in the other's, and a dawning of it began to grow upon Dixon. He dropped his arms to his side, inviting Jean within reach. Suddenly the little Frenchman straightened. His glittering eyes shot from the Englishman's face to the brush behind him, and a piercing yell burst from his lips. Involuntarily Dixon started, half turning his face, and before he had come to his guard Gravois flung himself under his arms, striking with the full force of his body against his antagonist's knees.
Together they went down in the trail. There was only one science now—that of the forest man. The lithe, brown fingers, that could have crushed the life of a lynx, fastened themselves around the Englishman's man's throat, and there came one gasping, quickly throttled cry as they tightened in their neck-breaking grip.