Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/125

 run twenty feet up the game trail they were after her. The pupils of their eyes, accustomed to the firelight, were not readily readjusted to the velvety black under the trees and they stumbled blindly.

When the foremost man stretched forth his hand to seize her something struck his extended arm with such force as to almost shear it off. He tripped and fell.

“The dog!” he screamed. “She’s got a dog! Look out for him.”

The next man fell over him and pulled his gun as he scrambled to his feet. He bounded ahead—and teeth with the grip of death clamped his leg from behind and a backward wrench slammed him down across a log. As he fell the red spurt of flame from his gun streaked the night and the man close behind cursed him for a fool for shooting almost point blank in his face.

Love transcended fear in Flash and, in his rage against these men who would harm the girl, he conquered his dread of guns. Always it was the man ahead, the one nearest to her, that felt his teeth. Human flesh could not endure against this silent, unseen fiend that slashed them and