Some minutes later Lem Lutts crouched upon a bench, hunched up, naked to the waist, broken, bleeding, panting, heaving, piteously weeping, his chin down till it touched his bare, lacerated breast. Without, amidst the darkling shades of night, the she-panther crept from the gloomy haunting depths of the ravine, up to the very rim of the clearing. Up-reared, with her bowed fore-legs upon a scrub cedar stump, the big cat's spotted lips parted and she cried out a tremulous portentous wail across the dusk. Then came the sound of the pattering of padded jungle feet as she skulked back to her lair down in the bristling bowels of the shadow-peopled gulch. The man of iron who stood scowling over the conquered, broken youth, felt a compelling loneliness picking upon his steely nerves. "Come, Lutts! Let's hike out of here," ordered the detective as he pulled the stupefied boy to his feet. He half dragged Lem to the door of the church, saying: "I guess I'll take you down to Frankfort. Mebby when you're there a while you'll tell where that damn whisky shop is you've been running up here the last hundred years." Near to the door in the dim light, a few scant feet to one side, the boy caught sight of a long, vertical streak of yellow rope crossing the dark background of the gloom. Then it was that, with a lightning-like quickness, Lem lunged sidewise and fastened his fingers like dog's teeth upon the length of hemp suspended from the belfry. With a growl of rage Burton sprung upon him. He rained blow after blow down upon the boy's head and body, torrents of resounding smashes, awful, crushing, killing blows. The terrific struggle, with the bell-rope for a prize, set the new bell ringing, and the reverberations carried for miles up and down Hellsfork. Its frantic utterances resounded across the hills like the screams of a woman. In despair the revenuer ceased his beating, and his fingers, reeking with the boy's blood, found Lem's neck. His terrible hands garroted Lem's throat flat and stopped his breath. With all his mighty strength, the revenuer choked him until the lad's face blackened and his tongue and eyes started. Then, with a great heave upward, he shook his victim as a terrier shakes an old boot, and cast him away and stood panting in the dark and cursing breathlessly. The damage was done. The revenuer knew that he could count himself lucky to get away alive now, far less drag a prisoner; even at that moment desperate men were hurrying to answer the call of that church-bell. Burton fled into the night toward the spot where he knew that Jutt Orlick awaited him. CHAPTER VII DEDICATED WITH HIS BLOOD