And the calm, sure strength of the wilderness itself came down and sustained him during the stress and fury of the attack. His face was impassive, his hands steady as bars of steel, his eyes were narrow and bright and clear. He raised the revolver. He glanced coolly down its sights. And he fired for the first time when the great cat was hardly forty feet away. The bullet sped true, inflicting a mortal wound, and the great beast recoiled. But the shocking power of the lead was not enough to destroy wholly the mighty engine of life in Broken Fang’s body. He snarled once in fury and sprang forward again. But it was not the hunting charge now. It was the blind, savage rush of a wounded animal, ready to fight to the death. Again Hugh shot with amazing accuracy, and again the cat went down. But the impetus of his fury could not be overcome. He leaped forward, and the third bullet was a complete miss. The fourth, following quickly upon it, inflicted a flesh wound but halted him not at all. And he crashed down once more at the fifth. But even then the vital, surging life in the creature still lingered. He came creeping forward, fangs gleaming, long talons bared. An instant more Hugh waited, standing straight and motionless. Only one bullet remained, and no risks must be taken with that. Shep—who had rushed about the flock at Spot’s approach—came charging to his master’s aid. One long second dragged away, with a curious effect of silence and immeasurable suspense. It was such a picture that might never be effaced from the memory: the suddenly awakened sheep, the approaching forest fire, the motionless figures, the snarling, creeping feline, and the red glow as of the abyss over all. The creature paused—scarcely ten feet distant—and gathered himself for a final spring. Hugh fired his last bullet. There was one strange instant more in which the bunched muscles relaxed and the great body wilted in the pine needles. The dog leaped upon it, but it was already impotent. A strength such as but rarely comes to man had held Hugh’s hand steady; and the shot had made a clean passage through the creature’s brain. Broken Fang’s trail of rapine and carnage had come to an end at last. He typified all that was most deadly and terrible in the wilderness, and he had fallen in fair battle with the breed whose strength—in such regions where they venture—has conquered the wilderness. He was a forest monarch; but his foe was the shepherd. Talon and fang and supple strength had not been availing. He would linger no more about the white flocks, and the Little People along the game trails had seen him steal by for the last time. No more would the deer know his long, shuddering scream as the night came down. He lay as if fallen in battle against the flocks,—a token of man’s dominance of the wild.