Sunlight Patch Part 19

"Wait till I tie this beast," he said, "and you can peel off all the hide you're able!"

Tusk clicked his tongue and chuckled in fiendish delight as he watched Brent dismount. Dollars were nothing to him now. He was about to thrash the "railroad feller"--to kill him, maybe--and the world seemed transformed into a whirlwind of happiness.

Brent, coming slowly back, considered that in his recent college days his right punch had been a potent factor. In the gym it had come to be an unanswerable argument, and outside of the gym on one or two occasions--perhaps others might have been recalled--it was respectfully, even though dreamily, remembered.

But now, as he stood on the ground, the abnormally long arms of the antagonist before him precluded any reasonable chance of putting this narcotic into effect--at least, where it had heretofore proved its value. The point of the jaw had been his favorite spot, but the point of this fellow's jaw would be as difficult to reach as Mars. However, he approached warily, taking a close look at the ground to make sure there were no hindrances to footwork, and rather humorously whispering: "Brent, if I didn't actually know better, I'd take you for as big an idiot as this b.o.o.b who'll probably crack your nut." He had as whimsical a way of going into dangers as of going into pleasures, and now there was no trace of anger.

Tusk, watching him approach, raised his hand and blinked at a stone he had slyly picked up. But when he, too, saw his opponent on foot he scorned the need of a weapon, even so primitive. Quite deliberately then he rolled his tattered sleeves up on those powerful, freckled, hairy arms; and grinned, showing the hideous yellow teeth.

CHAPTER XV

TRYING TO PLAY FAIR

"Put up your paddles now, Mr. Potter," Brent said, edging to the left.

His arms were working like slowly moving piston-rods of an engine, that is capable of great speed. He was on his toes, and his sinuous movements seemed to speak of highly tempered springs and oil. He was indeed a different Brent from any which the countryside had heretofore seen.

"Come ahead, old mutton-top," he laughed. "I'm going to fill your eye!"

To Tusk's imagination this shy fighter who kept himself at safe distances now became suddenly elongated, and then as suddenly grew normal. In the meanwhile, however,--in that infinitesmal part of a second during which the transformation occurred--a fist as hard as rocks smashed into his mouth. It was the sting of the blow, more than its actual force, which made the big fellow wild with rage; and as this increased in fury Brent kept up a rapid conversation generously punctuated with cool, insulting epithets. It was unbearable to the simple-minded Tusk who struck with a savageness that would have felled an ox. He charged his foe but never found him, he cursed and drooled and charged again, until at last Brent said in a tone of great solicitude:

"Well, old throw-back, I reckon I'll have to uncouple you now, and let in the twilight! Hate to do it--Ugh!" The right swing went smashing out--not to the jaw, but at just the proper instant to the pit of Tusk's stomach. In another fraction of a second Brent was five feet away, wiping the perspiration from his forehead and watching the big fellow crumple up.

For he was clutching, tearing open his shirt and swaying. His eyes stared wildly, his face was drawn and his mouth was open to its fullest capacity in a struggle for breath. Then he went down, all of a heap; tried to regain his feet, but failed, and crawled about on his hands and knees in the dust, still fighting for that first gasp of air which seemed tauntingly to stand between him and eternity. When it came, he rolled over on his back and lay there panting.

"Get up," Brent scowled. "We've got to finish this sc.r.a.p, and I'm in a hurry!"

Tusk blinked at him in sheer perplexity. "What's yoh idee of finish?" he asked.

"I'll show you in a minute. Get up!"

"That don't sound like good sense to me," Tusk whined. "Say, how'd you do that, anyhow? I've knocked a lot with fellers, but--"

There was a spirit of forgiveness in the voice, a whisper of reconciliation, but Brent wanted his victory to be absolute. He appeared to go into a towering rage, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his face into a distorted horror, stamping about like a demon, and disfiguring himself as much as possible--trying, Chinese fashion, the experiment of terrifying the enemy into abject submission, and having a great deal of fun throughout.

Growing more and more superst.i.tious about this mysteriously delivered blow from a man of smaller stature, and his apparent confidence to do it again any number of times, Tusk remained in a sitting position and stared. He became gradually impressed with a feeling that here was his master, and the more Brent raved the more he cringed. At last he whined:

"I don't want no moh!"

"Will you come back with me and tell Tom Hewlet what I say?"

"Yep."

"And make him believe it?"

"He's durn sure to believe it when I tell 'im 'bout this heah!"

"All right; get up. You and I can be good friends, or d.a.m.n bad ones, whichever you please; and it all depends on how you act tonight. Come on, before he goes to bed!"

As they proceeded toward Tom's house, but a few hundred yards away, Brent, still laughing under his breath, continued:

"You rub it in well, d'you hear? Tell him the Colonel, Mr. Dulany and I will give the sheriff papers that'll send him to the pen. D'you know how long people have to serve for blackmail? A hundred years; sometimes twice as long! And they can't get pardoned, either, but just break rocks every day, Sundays and Christmases, with their teeth."

"With yoh teeth!" Tusk cried.

"Of course, with your teeth," Brent chuckled. "Ain't your hands cut off?

And sometimes they feed the rocks to you hot, and you never get any water--when you go up for blackmail! It takes--oh, I should say, about fifty years for a man to go sort of crazy and begin to yell; but I showed the keepers how to stop that. Now, they put fish hooks in your tongue, and tie you up--"

"Great Gawd A'mighty!" Tusk screamed, springing away from him. "Don't tell me no moh--it's plumb wicked!"

"I haven't begun to tell you half, yet!"

"Naw, naw. Mister Whatever-yoh-name-is, I won't listen to no moh!"

Brent carried a small electric torch, and this happened to be in his hand while he was thus amusing himself with Potter. Absently now he pressed the b.u.t.ton and watched the light, shining behind his closed fingers, turn them a bright, transparent red. He did not realize that Tusk had been keeping a close eye on him until he heard another exclamation of horror. For the instant he partially suspected mischief and wheeled about, but one look at the half-wit dissipated all doubt. He was standing with his mouth open, a picture of abject fear, trying to speak, stammering, and finally staggered to the fence. Brent was really concerned for him, thinking it might be some sort of a fit: but Tusk had turned and, although cringing, was staring back with enchanted eyes.

"Devil!" he hoa.r.s.ely whispered. "You're full of fire! I jest seen you light up like a lightnin'-bug! You're a devil! I know; a devil!"

"Oh," Brent, more than ever delighted with this adventure, began to understand, "I see what you mean! Yes, sure 'nough, I'm the devil--the very old boy himself, dressed up this way to fool people. Zip!" He let the torch flash again behind his closed fingers, and again Tusk gasped and trembled as they turned magically aglow.

"Shut up," Brent commanded. "You'll scare Tom! And if you tell a soul who I am--well, you can guess what I'll do to you! Now call Tom out, and put it to him strong. I'll stand in the fence here and listen; and if you don't put it to him strong!--" Again the electric torch.

Tusk's wavering call sounded before the broken gate, and the injured voice of Mrs. Hewlet answered. In a few minutes Tom emerged from the side of the house as before; but a moment after him crept another figure, stealing through the shadows in a detour and stopping behind the same bush which sheltered Brent. She was not seen by anyone but him, nor did she know that he was there.

"Tom," the big fellow whined, "I jest seen 'im;--that--that man 'bout yoh hund'ed."

Hewlet gave a sign of satisfaction, while Brent wanted to indulge a chuckle which seemed to arise from all parts of him. He was immeasurably pleased. He thought humorously of Frankenstein, and how he must have felt with the monster in his keeping. It was weird, fascinating, and altogether to his liking.

"He's just beat the h.e.l.l out of me down the road," Tusk whimpered; "an now him an' the Cunnel's goin' to town to git you 'rested."

Tom's jaw dropped in utter surprise at both of these statements.

"'Rested!" he cried. "What for?"

"That askin' for money was blackmail--blackmail, Tom! Don't forgit the word. An' it's fifty year in the pen with fishhooks in yoh tongue."

"Shet up!" Tom cried again. "What you mean? They're after me?"

He failed to see that his informer was in a dripping perspiration and hardly able to stand from fright. He saw nothing beyond a dawning fear that he had gone too far.

"You mean they're already started, or talkin' 'bout startin'?" he asked again.

"Don't ask me no moh," Tusk wailed. "It ain't decent to speak of! An', oh, my Gawd, I'm a goner if you don't git this hammered inter you good an' strong. I'd better do it now!"

Thereupon he made a grab for the luckless Hewlet, who eluded the iron hands in the nick of time and retreated toward the house.

"Go home, Tusk," he warned. "You're drunk tonight. I'll be at yoh cabin in the mawnin'." And, with this parting promise, he went in.