"It's the dam!" shouted Tom Gray. "They've got us this time!" growled Tom, starting down the bank, followed by Hippy and the yowling bull pup. Hippy saw a figure running from the bank of the river a little further upstream. It was a man, and he was running in short hops, as if he were using a stick or cane to assist him in covering ground rapidly. Behind the fleeing man Tom and Hippy discovered a second figure. It was Willy Horse. The first figure, as the two Overlanders started for him at a run, had dashed out over the broken and bent spiles of the dam, hopping from one spile to another with remarkable agility, with Willy Horse in close pursuit. The hopping man, reaching the end of the spiles at the middle of the dam, halted, hesitated, and the Indian was upon him. "It's Peg Tatem!" cried Hippy. "He's the scoundrel who did this thing." A knife in Peg's hand flashed in the moonlight, another appearing in the hand of the Indian, and out there on their precarious footing the men stood, thrusting and parrying, with their two-edged blades, watched with breathless interest by the entire Overland party, who had rushed to the river's edge. A sudden uproar was heard in the direction of the bunk-house. The lumberjacks having discovered that a fight was in progress were running towards the river to see if they too could not get into the fray, for a lumberjack loves nothing in the world so violently as he loves a fight. "Keep out of it!" ordered Tom as he saw that the jacks were headed for the path that Peg and Willy had taken. "Tom! Do something!" begged Grace. "Don't let those two men kill each other." "We can do nothing. Even to call to Willy would take his attention from the battle. You know what that would mean." "Oh-h-h-h-h!" moaned Emma, toppling over in a faint. "Oh, Heavens! Look!" wailed Anne. One of the combatants staggered and swayed. An arm was thrust out at him, but the blade that had been driven against him did not flash in the moonlight, for the body of the wielder was between it and the spectators. Even the jacks stood silent, they having halted at Tom Gray's command, but their breathing was heavily audible. "He's killed! It's Peg!" cried Grace. The Indian's victim, following the last thrust, had toppled over into the river below the dam. With a bound, Willy Horse cleared the spiling and leaped to the river bed to finish his victim. "Willy! Stop!" Grace Harlowe's voice rang out shrill and penetrating, as Willy, the savage instincts of his race having taken possession of his soul, raised his knife-hand above Peg Tatem, who lay on his back on the river-bed. CHAPTER XXIV CHRISTMAS IN THE BIG WOODS Willy Horse, brought suddenly to his senses by Grace's scream, hesitated, got slowly to his feet, and stood narrowly watching his opponent who lay, nearly covered with water, moaning faintly. There was ferociousness in the heart of the Indian, but Grace's voice had stayed his hand.