For a tense minute the two creatures stood opposite one another, like bulls ready to charge. Then out shot Red-Hood's tail, striking with a crash against the rainbowed armor of the foe. And Yellow-Claws' breast was streaked with a golden-yellow spurt of blood; and crimson fires shot from his lips in curling tongues. Wrathfully his own tail lashed out, but missed his antagonist, who had leapt back with hair-trigger agility; while from Red-Hood's throat came such a howl that the very web trembled. Gates was aware that a score of Saturnians stood watching intently below, at a safe distance, like spectators about a prize ring. He heard them whirring with excitement as the two opponents fended for positions. Then, to his astonishment, he saw Red-Hood springing forward, his octopus arms outspread, like some monster of a nightmare. Yellow-Claws was ready for the onslaught; and for a moment the two furies clashed, wrestling with hurricane vehemence ... so that they seemed little more than a gigantic whirl of squirming, rotating, threshing arms, legs and tails. But soon, with an unearthly cry, one of the creatures detached himself, and with cyclonic speed darted up the web. So swiftly did he travel that at first Gates was unable to determine that it was Yellow-Claws that fled, while Red-Hood pursued close behind. Up and down and sideways along the web, with all manner of athletic twists and wrigglings, the embattled pair rushed, now scores of feet above the observer, now hundreds of feet beneath. Once Yellow-Claws lost his grip and fell, but, with gymnastic swiftness, clutched at a dangling cable, and saved himself barely in time. Once, slashed in the neck by Red-Hood's tail, he let out such a roar that Gates thought he had been slain. Once it was Red-Hood who, torn by his opponent's tail, yelled in agony. Several times the rivals were screened from one another amid smoke clouds. Yet it was but a few minutes before the fight was over. Yellow-Claws, one of his arms almost half severed, waved his tail high in air, and uttered a shrill, "Wikyi! Wikyi! Wikyi!" ("I give up! I give up!") And Red-Hood, with a contemptuous snort, lashed out at him for a final time; and then, acknowledging the conclusion of peace, screamed triumphantly, and majestically stalked away. * * * * * But for hours the defeated giant sat on a web just below Gates, tending his wounds. His armor had lost its iridescence; thick smears of golden-orange covered its gashed surface. Yet Yellow-Claws' three-cornered eyes blazed with unsubdued anger; and his greenish-gray lips were twisted into grimaces of hate. Vengefully he muttered to himself, ignoring the presence of an earthling in the web above; vengefully he muttered three words, "Zugavl! Zugavl! Zug!" Gates did not need to know the meaning of these expressions; from the manner in which they were uttered, he was sure that they boded no good for the Peerless Red One.