as it saw Nixon rise up. Then with a roar it leaped at him.

Nixon made no move to jump aside. He had ripped off his jacket and shirt, wound them around his left forearm. There was an instant when the moonlight gleamed on the beast's wild eyes and opened jaws as it leaped. Then Nixon thrust his padded, crooked arm outward and up as the jaws came at his throat. The impact of the huge tawny body knocked him backward. He felt the jaws closing on his arm as he fell with the beast on top of him. In a moment they were rolling, with Nixon desperately squirming and lunging, trying to get a grip on the great cat's throat. He could feel the claws ripping his clothing, his flesh, with his blood spurting and white streaks of hot pain shooting into him.

Nixon's fingers gripped the loose skin of the panther's neck. But at once he knew it was no use. The beast's strength was too great. He felt the rippling muscles under the loose skin resisting his clutch. Then the great jerking body tore loose; the jaws relaxed their grip, dropped his arm, came again at his throat....

As the giant went down, a horror-stricken cry had gone up from the crowds of watching Orites. Now the great antagonists were rolling. In a moment they had crossed from the edge of the rock-slope almost to the sward where the Spaceship cylinder had landed. Nixon could feel the crackling sward under him. Hot blood in his eyes blurred everything. He managed to wipe it away, and thrust out his padded arm again for the brute's jaws to grip.

Then Nixon's right hand, brushing the bristling sward, came upon a jagged sliver of rock in that very fragment blasted from the cliff by that first storm upon his arrival. Both heavy and sharp, it made a terrible weapon. With a whirling lunge he jammed that clumsy spear of rock into the panther's slavering jaws—on down into its hot and roaring gullet. In a moment the beast's snarls were choked with blood. With its human antagonist momentarily ignored, the puzzled, choking brute was staggering, flinging its head from side to side. Then it was rolling on the ground, with paws frantically fumbling at its mouth.

It was Nixon's chance now. He flung himself on the beast. His frantic fingers closed about its windpipe. The panther screamed and writhed, but Nixon's grip was inexorable. The screams died to slobbering gasps. At last the tawny shape was lying on its side. For a moment the paws convulsively jerked. Then it was motionless.

VII

A day had 

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