Back and forth across the little room they fought, with little advantage either way, while Dorothy watched them breathlessly. Like gladiators they circled each other, coming together at intervals with the shock of two enraged bulls. Both were soon bleeding from small cuts on the head and face, but neither was aware of the fact. Occasionally they collided with articles of furniture, which were overturned and swept aside almost unnoticed; while Dorothy was forced to step quickly from one point to another to keep clear of them. Several times Wade told her to leave the room, but she would not go. Finally the ranchman's superior condition began to tell in his favor. At the end of ten minutes' fighting, the agent's breathing became labored and his movements slower. Wade, still darting about quickly and lightly, had no longer much difficulty in punishing the brutal, leering face before him. Time after time he drove his fists mercilessly into Moran's features until they lost the appearance of anything human and began to resemble raw meat. But suddenly, in attempting to sidestep one of his opponent's bull-like rushes, the cattleman slipped in a puddle of blood and half fell, and before he could regain his footing Moran had seized him. Then Wade learned how the big man's reputation for tremendous strength had been won. Cruelly, implacably, those great, ape-like arms entwined about the ranchman's body until the very breath was crushed out of it. Resorting to every trick he knew, he strove desperately to free himself, but all the strength in his own muscular body was powerless to break the other's hold. With a crash that shook the house to its foundation, they fell to the floor, and by a lucky twist Wade managed to fall on top. The force of the fall had shaken Moran somewhat, and the cattleman, by calling on the whole of his strength, succeeded in tearing his arms free. Plunging his fingers into the thick, mottled throat, he squeezed steadily until Moran's struggles grew weaker and weaker. Finally they ceased entirely and the huge, heavy body lay still. Wade stumbled to his feet and staggered across the room. "It's all right," he said thickly, and added at sight of Dorothy's wide, terror-stricken eyes: "Frightened you, didn't we? Guess I should have shot him and made a clean job of it; but I couldn't, somehow." "Oh, he's hurt you terribly!" the girl cried, bursting into fresh tears.