Parker moved, but did not step aside. He lurched forward. He swung the axe above his head thrice, as a hammer thrower whirls his weight. He let it go and doubled quickly, with a shriek of crazy mirth. Glass of the wind shield splintered explosively. Wilcox, beside the driver, cried out. Bert Wales and Wes Hubbard, in the back seat, threw up their arms against the glass slivers—then rose and leaned forward.
Jim Harris made no sound. His hand retained its grasp on the brake and he sagged forward over the wheel, a great, limp hulk; the axe dropped to the floor and the purpling patch behind his ear sent out its first thin ooze of blood. The others lifted him out of the seat as a roadster stopped behind them and Dr. Pelly, Humphrey Bryant and John Taylor got out and gathered about the prostrate Harris.
There was little blood, but Harris' breathing was fast and heavy and as the physician, kneeling on the sand, touched the bruise with light fingers they saw the broken bone stir beneath discoloring skin.
"Isn't that bad, doctor?" Wilcox was the first to speak and Pelly nodded.
"As good as dead."
The smoke-laden wind sobbed in the trees above them. For a moment there was no other sound and then Thad Parker's weak, faltering voice rose in a thin wail, half fright, half triumph.
"Dead! Dead? And I killed him? Before God, I killed him with my hands! I killed him, and he killed my wife, my hope—I—I—"
He whirled and would have run again, but hands clutched him. He struggled and shouted and laughed.
