Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/34

 As the man dropped from his horse and strode to the door, Flash moved only his eyes as they followed Brent.

Finding that Moran had gone, Brent started back to his horse. In his hand he carried a heavy blacksnake stock whip of plaited rawhide, and as he passed Flash he flipped it carelessly at the wolf. Flash snapped at it and the pop-lash drew the blood from his lip.

Without a sound he launched himself straight for Brent. His splendid body was three feet in the air when he struck the end of the chain and was jerked flat by his own force. His fangs had gleamed within a foot of the man’s face before he was snatched back, and for one brief instant Brent had seen death staring him in the face.

The sudden, numbing shock from this unexpected move was followed instantly by a blind rage and he swung the whip again and again. The very intensity of his desire to hurt defeated its own purpose as he lashed out in a frenzy of harmless blows, swinging the pliable whip as he would a club, when the deathly sting of the blacksnake whip is carried only in the back-snap of the popper.