"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 chastisement. 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 dogging 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.