Dick and Sandy held their breath as they saw the white Eskimo draw back his arm and pose for a throw. An instant Mistak bent backward, still as a statue, then his body and arm snapped forward simultaneously, like a catapult. The spear shot forward in a low arc toward Moonshine Sam, half as swift as an arrow.
Moonshine Sam fell flat in the snow none too soon, and the whizzing weapon buried itself in the snow a few feet beyond him. Like a flash Moonshine Sam leaped to his feet, wheeled and ran for the spear, pawing frantically in the snow, he at last found the buried spear.
Mistak was making for the other outlaw at a spraddling run, as Moonshine Sam aimed the spear to throw it back. But he had a running target that was purposely bobbing up and down and zig-zagging.
Then the spear flashed through the moonlight, a streak of potent death, but the white outlaw was not an expert spear thrower. The weapon missed Mistak by several feet.
“They’re going to close in,” Dick whispered, burying his fingers into Sandy’s arm in his excitement.
Both outlaws obviously had drawn knives now. Moonshine Sam must have stolen one before he escaped from the igloo. They circled warily. First one then the other advanced, Mistak moving more swiftly on his snowshoes, though his footwork was ponderous enough.
Moonshine Sam finally ceased trying to outmaneuver his opponent, and stood stolidly, knee deep in the snow—waiting.
Then Mistak struck, like a flash. But Moonshine Sam was not so inexpert with a knife as he was with a spear. The white outlaw parried Mistak’s swift thrust and sent him reeling backward, almost falling when one snowshoe caught on its mate. But the white Eskimo quickly regained his feet, and began to circle again for an opening.
For several minutes Mistak kept Moonshine Sam turning about, then he rushed in again. The knives clashed and held. It was strength against strength now as each outlaw strove to bring his knife downward for a fatal thrust. Weaving and straining, sometimes locked together as still as statues, the outlaws struggled, while the perspiration came out and froze on the faces of the hidden boys.
At last the two men broke away from each other for a brief second, but this time Moonshine Sam didn’t wait for Mistak to attack. He lunged forward out of the snow and caught the white Eskimo by his knife, arm and waist. Three times the attacking outlaw’s knife flashed up and down in the moonlight, and the boys knew Mistak had been wounded. Then the clenched two rolled to the snow, struggling like fiends. Minute after minute they fought, Mistak now handicapped by his snowshoes instead of aided by them. At last the white Eskimo was pinned upon his back and Moonshine Sam’s knife began slowly to descend against the strength of the outlaw leader’s left hand clutching the knife wrist.