“White-faced, desperate, she clung to him with the tenacity of a lynx.”
So help him God! Half stunned, he stumbled to his feet, his dazed eyes still blurred with a vision of horsemen, vaguely seen through vapors, stampeding northward; and, at the same instant, she sprang at him, striking the drawn revolver from his hand, tearing the sabre free and flinging it into the gulf. White-faced, desperate, she clung to him with the tenacity of a lynx, winding her lithe limbs around and under his, tripping him to his knees.
Over and over they rolled, struggling in the grass, twisting, straining, slipping down the westward slope.
“You—devil!” he panted, as her dark eyes flashed level with his. “I’ve got—you—anyhow——”
Her up-flung elbow, flexed like a steel wedge, caught him in the throat; they fell over the low ridge, writhing in each other’s embrace, down the slope, over and over, faster, faster—crack!—his head struck a ledge, and he straightened out, quivering, then lay very, very still and heavy in her arms.
Fiercely excited, she tore strips from her skirt, twisted them, forced him over on his face, and tied his wrists fast.
Then, leaving him inert there on the moss, she ran back for his revolver, found it, opened it, made certain that the cylinder was full, and, flinging one last glance down the pass, hastened to her prisoner.
Her prisoner opened his eyes; the dark bruise on his forehead was growing redder and wetter.