At the sight of that gun the most awful frenzy blazed in his eyes. He was a big fellow, and now, with the greatest deliberation, he rolled up his wide sleeves, disclosing a tremendous pair of arms, covered with heavy black hair. He looked like a typical Boxer on the war-path. Then he started in my direction, but in a moment changed his mind about leaving a foe in his rear, and with the most calculating, revolting cruelty that I have ever seen swirled his great blade down over the seated boy’s head, and plunged it to the hilt in his body. Women shrieked and fainted, and I felt myself all but falling. Raising my revolver I fired, and the ball broke his legs under him. He fell, and the army officer’s wife, with a terrible shriek, raised her baby to her shoulder and started down the car. But in an instant the Chinaman was on his feet, wounded as he was, and struck the woman an appalling blow over the shoulder. She dropped like a stone--apparently stabbed to the heart. I waited no more on the possibility of a high bullet glancing into the car ahead, but fired straight at his heart. Even with the crash of my pistol another sounded just behind me, and the yellow fiend fell headlong between two chairs. Someone went over and kicked him, but the body gave no sign of life, and we devoted our attention to the unfortunate young man, who now lay huddled in a pathetic and bloody heap in his seat. Others crowded around us, and at length I saw my cowboy friend approaching. Just as he reached me I was stooping over the Celestial’s first victim, in an attempt to raise him, when I heard the puncher yell, in an agonized voice, “For Heaven’s sake, Jack, look out!” I glanced backward, and there was that colourless, diabolical countenance again blazing into mine. He was standing erect, and the knife was poised for a blow which would have given me my quietus. As I looked, certain that death was coming, I felt a wrench at my hip-pocket. It was the cowboy tearing his revolver out of my clothes. Even as the knife descended, my saviour jammed his weapon squarely into the Chinaman’s ear--and fired. The big bullet, at that distance, almost tore his head to pieces. Blood was spattered over all of us, in the most sickening way that could be imagined. Hating to touch the body, we pushed it under a seat and turned our whole attention to the wounded. [Illustration: “EVEN AS THE KNIFE DESCENDED, MY SAVIOUR JAMMED HIS WEAPON SQUARELY INTO THE CHINAMAN’S EAR.”] The officer’s wife, strangely enough, had not a scratch on her. She was in a dead faint, but both she and the child were practically uninjured. The explanation of her escape seems to have been that the Chinaman’s wrist fell with full force on the baby, thus preventing the knife from doing any damage to either. The poor boy, though conscious, was plainly mortally wounded. He made no complaint, and smiled faintly as we carried him back to a vacant berth in one of the Pullmans.