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At sight of the advance-guard of the Horde now already loping, crouched and ugly, over the narrow bridge to Settlement Cliffs Allan's first impulse was one of absolute despair

He had expected an attack ere night, but at least he had hoped an hour's respite to recover a little of his strength and to muster all the still valid men of the Folk for resistance Noever, he saw even this was to be denied him For already the leaders of the Horde scouts had passed the center of the bridge

Three or four minutes more and they would be inside the palisade, upon the cliff!

"God! If they once get in there, we're gone!" cried Allan "We're cut off frohtered The boy will die! They can bombard us with rocks fro up the path toward the palisade Not one second was to be lost There was no tile le-handed and alone he , stu, he scrahts outdistanced hie!" choked he "My first act when I set foot on solid land should have been to cut the ropes and drop the whole thing into the rapids! I ht have known this would happen--fool that I was!"

The safety, the life, of the whole colony, including his wife and son, now depended solely on his reaching the southern end of the bridge before the vanguard of the Horde

With a heart-racking burst of energy he sprang to the defence, and as he ran he drew his hunting-knife

Reeling with exhaustion, spent, winded, yet still in desperation struggling onward, he won the top of the cliff, swung to the left along the path that led to the bridge, and--more dead than alive--rushed onward in a last, supreme effort

Already he saw the Anthropoids ithin a hundred feet of the abutment He could plainly see their squat, hideous bodies, their hairy and pendent ars, as at their best speed they made for the cliff

Three or four poisoned darts fell clicking on the stones about hie burst from the file of beast-ility--sprang up into the guy ropes of the bridge, clung there, and discharged an arrow fro but the faster, plugged hi, yowled hideously, then all at once dropped off and vanished in the depths