Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/96

88 claws. He was the great Broken Fang; and this creature that rose up from the waters was but a fawn in strength compared to him. The lamb was almost in his grasp. His sinuous tail twitched at the tip.

It was the most terrible moment in Hugh's life, a moment of test in which the basic metal within the man was tried in the fire. He could not turn back now. He shouted with the full power of his lungs; but on the might of his own eye and will, on the old elemental superiority of man over the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air rested life or death. He was of the dominant breed, and if he forgot that fact for one instant—in this moment of stress—those white fangs would lash out.

For the first time in his life Hugh Gaylord had to rely on his own manhood for success or failure. His wealth, his influential social connections, breeding and birth and class could not aid him here. It was simply the trial of man against beast, the power of man's will against resistless physical might. If he flinched, if he turned for an instant, all was lost.

His face was white as white foam, the lines cut deep like brands, the heart of the man was like ice. Yet the eyes didn't flinch. They burned steady and straight,—into the glowing twin circles of blue fire just above him.

There was a long, strange moment of silence in which it seemed that the river flowed like a