“If only the boys back at Valley View High could see us now,” Jerry yelled in his ear. “Wouldn’t it be something to drop that Pepper March out here some night? Boy! Or better yet, let’s drop him into a den of those Kodiak bears.”
Sandy laughed. “I don’t know which of the two is more ornery. He might scare them off.”
They reached the cabin door, and Sandy leaned against it and pushed it open. They staggered inside and slammed it shut behind them. The interior of the one-room shack was dark, except for the logs burning low and evenly on the open hearth.
Sandy blinked to accustom his eyes to the dimness. “I could have sworn there was a light in the window as we came along the path.”
“Probably the reflection of the flames on the panes,” Jerry suggested.
“Yeah. Well, let’s light a lamp.” Sandy took several steps toward a table silhouetted against the firelight, then stopped suddenly. “Hey!” he said in a startled voice, nudging an object on the floor with his boot. “What’s this junk spread all over the floor? Looks like somebody was breaking up house. I wonder—” He broke off as a dark shape materialized from the shadows in the far corner of the cabin and seemed to glide toward him. At the same time, he heard Jerry’s excited shout in his ear.
“Sandy! There’s somebody in here. Hey, look out!”
Sandy Steele, without even a consciousness of what he was facing, reacted with his athlete’s instinct and reflexes. Crouching low, he braced himself solidly, and as the figure loomed up before him, he threw a hard body block at the middle of it. His shoulder hit a solid form and he heard a soft grunt of pain and anger. As his arms grappled with the intruder, he realized for the first time that it was a man. His fingers brushed rough wool, and then he felt the steel fingers at his throat.
“Get help, Jerry!” he bellowed, just before the wind was pinched off in his throat. Then he took a hard, numbing blow at the back of his neck and felt himself falling ... falling ... falling ... into blackness.