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102 oaths and breakage. Those who stood their ground had their backs turned, and were apparently absorbed in something before them.

While he raced, Archer saw what it was. Before the broken panels of the door old Lehane and Peter stood in a clinch so desperate that the rest had fallen back to watch them. Even in the heat of running Archer could see the wrench of muscles under the blue jersey of the one and the coat, green with age, that covered the broad back of the other. Peter, with both hands aloft, gripped Lehane's wrist so that a pistol pointed skyward; but round his own throat a great, fat hand was murderously at work. Both bodies, the lithe and the bulky, were strained to the last fibre.

"Old fool!" grunted Peter. His eyes were almost shut against the sun, the blue veins showed like a Biblical seal on his forehead. "Quit it!" A sudden ripple of tense motion ran through his body from boot-heel to wrist. There was a sound like a stick snapping.

"Ah!" bellowed the big man. The pistol