CHAPTER IV
I
Clement realized at once that he was trapped, and neatly. The thought did not rob him of activity. The instinctive sense of action which is in every athlete functioned immediately. He dashed, not at the torch as every cornered animal or man would, as they expected him to do, but away from it.
He swung cleanly on his heel, and jumped as he swung. He sensed that there were several men in the room, and that they guarded the door. He neglected the door. He leaped for the window. If he could smash that, create an uproar in the Sault Algonquin, then he would attract help.
An oath came from a man as his game was realized. Something whistled through the air, hit a wall with a soft and terrible thud. “Sandbag,” registered Clement’s brain. He dodged, and there was another oath and another miss.
A shadow, lean and leaping like a cat, shot from the darkness into the dazzle of the torch. Clement saw a fierce, feline face, and one hand stretched forward to clutch, while the other swung up to club.
“Siwash,” Clement’s brain signaled. He spurred his body forward with a quicker drive of his foot, got in under the blow, and punched in both hands hard and sure. Siwash staggered and his stick went flying loose over Clement’s shoulder. Clement uppercut with a savage left, Siwash jerked upward grotesquely, went over wildly into the blackness. Clement hurdled his body, and his hand was on the advertisement boards screening the window.
Adolf Neuburg was on him.