Then, to his utter discomfiture, out popped Lucy, red with indignation.
"Nate Tierney, what you doing with my father? Where you going to take him to? Let him alone, I say. Let him alone!" Her voice rang out shrilly, as she came forward, trembling with anger, and her knight-errant looked up at her in a daze of wonderment. Could this be Lucy?
"I'm a-goin' to take him where he won't have a chance at you again very soon, child," he answered gently. "I'm a-goin' to put him in the lock-up."
"The lock-up!" shrieked Lucy.
"The lock-up?" yelled the children.
"The lock-up!" roared the prisoner, galvanized into action by this supreme horror. With one mighty effort he wrenched himself loose and turned upon Nate, fighting like a tiger.
It was a short battle. Taken by surprise Tierney was for a minute overpowered, but as he felt his only weapon, the stick, slipping from his grasp he put forth all his strength and caught it back with a desperate grip. Half fallen backward in the struggle he made a wild pass in the air. He heard a crashing noise that seemed to rend his own soul apart. Then the thud of a heavy body as it fell. And then, heaven and earth seemed to stand still for one awful minute as, feeling no further resistance, he raised himself and looked down upon his friend, William Hapgood. Inert and still he lay, with his skull crushed in just above the left temporal bone.