Moonshine Sam finally ceased trying to outmaneuver his opponent, and stood stolidly, knee deep in the snow—waiting.
Then Mistak struck, like a flash. But Moonshine Sam was not so inexpert with a knife as he was with a spear. The white outlaw parried Mistak’s swift thrust and sent him reeling backward, almost falling when one snowshoe caught on its mate. But the white Eskimo quickly regained his feet, and began to circle again for an opening.
For several minutes Mistak kept Moonshine Sam turning about, then he rushed in again. The knives clashed and held. It was strength against strength now as each outlaw strove to bring his knife downward for a fatal thrust. Weaving and straining, sometimes locked together as still as statues, the outlaws struggled, while the perspiration came out and froze on the faces of the hidden boys.
At last the two men broke away from each other for a brief second, but this time Moonshine Sam didn’t wait for Mistak to attack. He lunged forward out of the snow and caught the white Eskimo by his knife, arm and waist. Three times the attacking outlaw’s knife flashed up and down in the moonlight, and the boys knew Mistak had been wounded. Then the clenched two rolled to the snow, struggling like fiends. Minute after minute they fought, Mistak now handicapped by his snowshoes instead of aided by them. At last the white Eskimo was pinned upon his back and Moonshine Sam’s knife began slowly to descend against the strength of the outlaw leader’s left hand clutching the knife wrist.
With the end almost in sight, the boys heard a distant shout, and looking north of them, saw four men bearing down the slope.
“The police! The police!” cried Dick, as he got to his feet and began shouting and waving to them.
Two of the four men ran toward the struggling outlaws, but they were too late to stop the impending tragedy. Moonshine Sam’s knife found its mark, and he arose, shaking the snow from his clothes, leaving a still form in the snow.
It was not until then that the victorious outlaw discovered the two policemen descending upon him. With a startled shout, he started to run away, then aware that he could never get away alive, he shook his fists defiantly at his pursuers, and with a hoarse yell, plunged his knife into his own breast.