Once, when Lynch's horse snorted and moved uneasily, she caught his bridle and quieted him with a soothing word, her voice so choked and hoarse that she scarcely knew it. Again, as the men rolled toward the outer side of the ledge and seemed for a moment almost to overhang the precipice, she gave a smothered cry and darted forward, moved by some wild impulse to fling her puny strength into the scale against the outlaw. But with a heave of his big body, Buck saved himself as he had done more than once before, and the struggle was resumed. Back and forth they fought, over and over around that narrow space, until Mary was filled with the dazed feeling that it had been going on for ever, that it would never end. But not for an instant did she cease to follow every tiny variation of the fray, and of a sudden she gave another cry. Gripped in a fierce embrace, the two men rolled toward the entrance to the ledge, and all at once Mary saw one of Lynch's hands close over and instantly seize the revolver Buck had dropped there. Instantly she darted forward and tried to wrest it from his grasp. Finding his strength too great, she straightened swiftly and lifting one foot, brought her riding boot down fiercely with all her strength on Lynch's hand. With a smothered grunt his fingers laxed, and she caught up the weapon and stepped quickly back, wondering, if Lynch came uppermost, whether she would dare to try to shoot him. No scruples now deterred her. These had vanished utterly, and with them fear, nervousness, fatigue, and every thought of self. For the moment she was like the primitive savage, willing to do anything on earth to save--her man! But so closely were the two men entwined that she was afraid if she shot at Lynch the bullet might injure Buck. Once more the fight veered close to the precipice. Lynch was again uppermost; and, whether by his greater strength, or from some injury Buck had sustained against the rocks, the girl was seized by a horrible conviction that he had the upper hand. Knees gripping Stratton about the body, hands circling his throat, Lynch, apparently oblivious to the blows rained on his chest and neck, was slowly but surely forcing his opponent over the ragged margin of the ledge. It was at this instant that the frantic girl discovered that her weapon had suffered some damage when it fell and was quite useless. Already Buck's head overhung the precipice, his face a dark, strangled red. Flinging the revolver from her, Mary rushed forward and began to beat Lynch wildly with her small, clenched fists. But she might as effectually have tried to move a rooted tree, and with a strangled cry, she wound her fingers in his coarse black hair and strove with all her strength to drag Lynch back. CHAPTER XXXV THE DEAD HEART