"Let me alone! Let me go!" cried Tom furiously. "You've got no business to keep me here."
"I'm doing it for pleasure, say."
The other tried to break away, but Larrabie had caught his arm and twisted it in such a way that he could not move without great pain. Impotently he writhed and cursed. Meanwhile his captor relieved him of his revolver, and, with a sudden turn, dropped him to the ground and stepped back.
"What's eating you, Keller? Have you gone plumb crazy? Gimme back that gun and let me go," the young fellow screamed.
"You don't need the gun right now. Maybe, if you had it, you might take a notion to plug me the way you did Buck Weaver."
"What—what's that?" Then, in angry suspicion: "I suppose Phyllis told you that lie."
He had not finished speaking before he regretted it. The look in the face of the other told him that he had gone too far and would have to pay for it.
"Stand up, Tom Dixon! You've got to take a thrashing for that. There's been one coming to you ever since you ran away and left a girl to stand the gaff for you. Now it's due."
"I don't want to fight," Tom whined. "I reckon I oughtn't to have said that, but you drove me to it. I'll apologize——"
"You'll apologize after your thrashing, not before. Stand up and take it."