Ellis Parker Butler

“ I call it more marvelous that a rugged half-breed should stop with uplifted chair at the pointing of a stump of an arm and, clasping his own throat until his fingers left their marks there, die of apoplexy, than that once—just once more and for their last time—a young man's fingers, alive or dead, should have the power to throttle a wild beast and save the Girl. ”

“ There is a glass on a table, and the stump of an arm readies out for it with phantom fingers that are only the lingering ghosts of fingers a man will never use again. It is weeks before a chap like Jacky remembers not to stick out his stump of a right arm to do a hand-shake with whomever holds out a hand to be shaken. A lost hand "goes to sleep" as convincingly as if it still existed, and it is enough to make a man grin when he wants to rub the dumb member and has to think twice before he remembers it is the end of the stump he must rub. ”

“ The half-breed let the chair fall to the floor and clasped his hands on his neck. He pulled and wrenched at the fingers that were tightening on his throat. His face went red; his knees trembled; he gasped madly for breath; gripped in the vicelike hand he hung limp, held up by the hand that was killing him. Then Jack opened his hand, and the dead man fell to the floor.
For a moment more Jack stood there—Mary still inert and clasped in his left arm, the half-breed in a lifeless heap on the floor, and Jack's own stump of a right arm extended over the dead man. ”