“Good!” cried Joe. “You poked him. Give ’em another.”
Again Harry fired, and another Ankut spun round like a top and rolled in a heap. Had not the toadstool poison been working in the Ankut veins, they would have been more cautious, and it would no doubt have gone hard with the three, but in their drunken frenzy the wizards came right on, firing a wild fusillade and yelling at the top of their lungs. They ran faster than Joe and Harluk could paddle, and drew steadily nearer. Two shots pierced the skin boat, and the water began to come into it. Joe laid down his paddle and took up the other rifle.
“We’ll fight it out right here,” he said.
The interchange of shots grew more rapid. Two more Ankuts fell, and even their crazy ferocity began to waver before so well-directed a fire. The umiak was a third full of water now, and Harluk turned its prow back toward the shore. There was an ugly gleam in Harluk’s eye, and he gritted his strong white teeth together, and now and then snapped them as a dog might. The Ankuts hesitated and stopped. Then an unexpected thing happened. Two shots came from behind them, and a fifth wizard sank to the ground.
“Nagouruk!” yelled Harluk, in his own language. “Kill some more; I come!”
The two Eskimo men whom Harry and Joe had seen treated as slaves had slipped up to the dead Ankuts, taken their rifles, and joined the fray. The Ankuts were bewildered. Drunk as they were, they realized that the tide was turned against them. Five of their number were already dead, and shots were coming upon them from seemingly all sides. They wavered. The bow of the umiak struck the bank and Harluk, with a yell, sprang from it and ran toward the wizards. His big knife flashed in his hand, and he yelled in a berserker rage. The stumbling, shambling run of the coast native was no longer his. He seemed to bound like a panther toward his prey. The apotheosis of the timid Eskimo had come, and he was a barbaric war god, glorying in the fray.
Cowards always at heart, the Ankuts turned and fled across the tundra toward the hills, pursued by shots from Joe’s and Harry’s rifles and those of the two village Eskimos. All but the white-faced half-breed. He stood his ground and reserved his fire as Harluk approached. His lip curled in that evil smile, and he leveled his rifle coolly. Harluk was face to face with doom.
Yet he never hesitated, but leaped on, shouting his defiance and swinging the big knife, yet red with the blood of the wolf dog. At ten feet the half-breed pressed the trigger. Surely Harluk’s amulet was potent that day, for the cartridge failed to explode. The half-breed cursed, snatched at the lever, then cursed again, for that, too, failed to work. The cartridge was jammed. Then he clubbed the rifle and swung it full at Harluk’s head. The Eskimo yelled derisively, ducked, and sent the big knife home to the heart of the chief of the Ankuts. His blood mingled with that of the wolf dog that had been less fierce and vindictive than he.