They were upon him in mass, striking, tearing like so many wild beasts in the first fierceness of attack.

His revolver jammed in its holster, but he struck out with clenched fists, battering at the black figures, his teeth ground together, his every instinct bidding him fight hard till he died.

Once they pounded him to his knees, but he struggled up, shaking loose their gripping hands, and hurling them back like so many children.

He was crazed by then with raging battle-fury, his hot blood lusting, every great muscle strained to the uttermost.

He realized nothing, saw nothing, but those dim figures facing him; insensible to the blood trickling down the front of his shirt, unconscious of wound, he flung himself forward a perfect madman, jerking a rifle from the helpless fingers of an opponent, and smiting to right and left, the deadly-iron bar whirling through the air.