There came a soft sound of feet thudding across the grass. The arm about Betty’s throat relaxed. She heard a startled oath, found herself flung aside. Her eyes opened.
Instantly she knew why Cig had released her. The man stood crouched, snarling, his eyes fixed on an approaching runner, one who moved with the swift precision of a half-back carrying a ball down a whitewashed gridiron.
The runner was the tramp whose face her father had battered to a pulp. He asked for no explanations and made no comment. Straight for the released convict he drove.
Cig had not a chance. The bad air and food of the slums, late hours, dissipation, had robbed him of both strength and endurance. He held up his fists and squared off, for he was game enough. But Tug’s fist smashed through the defense as though it had been built of paper. The second-story man staggered back, presently went down before a rain of blows against which he could find no protection.
Tug dragged him to his feet, cuffed him hard with his half-closed fist again and again, then flung him a second time to the ground. He stood over the fellow, his eyes blazing, his face colorless.
“Get up, you hound!” he ordered in a low voice trembling with anger. “Get up and take it! I’ll teach you to lay hands on a woman!”
Cig did not accept this invitation. He rolled away, caught up York’s heavy tramping stick, and stood like a wolf at bay, the lips lifted from his stained yellow teeth.
“Touch me again an’ I’ll knock your block off,” he growled, interlarding the threat with oaths and foul language.
“Don’t!” the girl begged of her champion. “Please don’t. Let’s go. Right away.”
“Yes,” agreed the young fellow, white to the lips.