Part 21 (1/2)

Tom continued to punish his opponent. Then Dolph, on regaining his feet, sought to run. Tom let him go a few steps, then bounded after him with the speed of the sprinter. Gage was caught by the shoulders, swung squarely around, and soundly pummelled.

”Let up! Let up!” begged Gage. ”I'm beaten. I admit it.”

”Beaten, perhaps, but not punished enough,” retorted Tom. As Dolph would no longer stand up, Reade threw himself upon the fellow and pummelled him fearfully.

”This is no fair fight,” protested Gage, now fairly sobbing in his pain and terror, for good-humored Reade seemed to him now to be the impersonation of destroying, fury.

”Fair fight?” echoed Reade. ”Of course it isn't. This is a chastis.e.m.e.nt. You villain, you've done nothing but annoy us and shoot at us ever since we've met you. You've got to stop it after this; do you understand?”

”I'll stop it---I'll stop it. Please stop yourself,” begged Gage, now thoroughly cowed.

”I'll wager you'll stop,” gritted Tom. ”I've never hammered a man before as I've hammered you, and I'm not half through with you. By the time I am through with you you'll slink into a corner every time you see me coming near. You scoundrel, you bully!”

Tom's fists continued to descend. Dolph's tone changed from one of entreaty to one of dire threats. He would spend the rest of his life, he declared, in d.o.g.g.i.ng Reade's tracks until he succeeded in killing the boy.

”That doesn't worry me any. You'll experience a change of heart---see if you don't,” Tom rejoined grimly, as he added to the pounding that the other was receiving.

Harry Hazelton had struggled to his feet, though he had been unable to free his hands from the cords that held them behind his back.

”You're not talking quite the way you did a few minutes ago, Gage,”

Harry put in dryly.

”You'll see---both of you young pups!” moaned the battered wretch.

”Ask any one, and they'll tell you that Dolph Gage never overlooks a pounding such as I've had.”

”And you got it from the boy that you were going to teach something,”

jeered Hazelton, ”Gage, you know a little more about Tom Reade, now, don't your?”

Then Harry straightened up, as he caught sight of moving objects in the distance.

”Get through with him, Tom” advised the other young engineer.

”I see Eb and Josh coming on the run. They'll have the guns.

We've got to look out for ourselves.”

Tom flung the badly beaten man from him where he lay on the ground moaning over his hurts and vowing vengeance on Tom.

”Stand still, Harry, and I'll have you free in a jiffy,” Tom proposed, hauling out his pocket knife.

”It won't do for us to stand still too long,” urged Hazelton, as his chum began to slash at the cords. ”The other scoundrels will kill us when they see what's been going on here.”

”No, they won't,” Tom promised calmly. ”We'll take care of 'em both. You wait and see which one I take. Then you take the other.

We'll handle 'em to the finish.”

This seemed like foolhardy talk when it was considered that the other two men would return armed. But Harry had unlimited confidence in his friend, and so followed Tom, crouching, until they had hidden behind bushes along the trail.

”Where be you, Dolph?” called the voice of Eb, as the pair drew near.

”He's over there,” spoke Reade, springing out of the bushes.