All this she beheld at the first glance. Then, keeping clear of the fighters she darted around to the terrified girl. With a cry Helen scrambled to her feet and clung to her sister’s arm, and began to pour out a stream of hysterical thankfulness.
“Oh, stop them,” she cried. “Oh, thank God, thank God! Stop them, or they’ll kill each other. Pete will kill him. He——”
But Kate had no time for such feminine weakness. She dragged the girl away out of sight, and left her while she returned to the affray.
Once in full view of it she made no effort to stop it. She stood looking on with the critical eye of an interested spectator, but her hand was grasping her revolver, nor was her forefinger far from the trigger of it.
The men rolled this way and that, while deep-throated curses came up from their midst with a breathless, muttered force. But through the tangle of sprawling bodies and waving limbs Kate’s quick eyes discovered all she required to satisfy herself. She saw no real life and death struggle here. Maybe, had the circumstances been changed, it would have been so, but one of the combatants was far too experienced a rough and tumble fighter for those circumstances to mature.
The man on top at the moment had the other in a vice-like grip by the right wrist, keeping the heavy revolver, which the underman had in his hand, from becoming a serious danger. With the other hand he was dealing his adversary careful, well-timed smashes upon his bruised and battered face, with the object of warding off a fierce attack of strong, yellow teeth.
The man on top had his adversary’s measure to a fraction. He was dealing with him almost as he chose, and the onlooker knew that it could only be moments before the other finally “squealed,” and dropped the murderous weapon from his hand.
Down came the fist, a great, white fist, with a soggy sound upon the man’s pulpy features, its force increased a hundred per cent. by the resistance of the hard ground on which his adversary lay. A fierce curse was the response, and a wild upward slash at the big face above. Then the big fist went up again.
“Drop it, you son-of-a-moose,” Kate heard, in Big Brother Bill’s fiercest tones. “Drop it, or I’ll kill you!”
Down came his fist with a fearful smash on the other’s gaping mouth.