Once they pounded him to his knees, but he struggled up,
shaking loose their gripping hands, and hurling them back like so many
children. He was crazed by then with raging battle-fury, his hot blood
lusting, every great muscle strained to the uttermost. He realized
nothing, saw nothing, but those dim figures facing him; insensible to
the blood trickling down the front of his shirt, unconscious of wound,
he flung himself forward a perfect madman, jerking a rifle from the
helpless fingers of an opponent, and smiting to right and left, the
deadly-iron bar whirling through the air. He struck once, twice; he
saw bodies whirl sidewise and fall to the ground. Then suddenly he
seemed alone, panting fiercely, the smashed rifle-stock uplifted for a
blow.
"It's the big fellow," roared a voice at his left. "Why don't you
fools shoot?"
He sprang backward, crouching lower, his one endeavor to draw their
fire, so as to protect her lying hidden among the rock shadows. He
felt nothing except contempt for those fellows, but he could not let
them hurt her.
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