The Big-Town Round-Up Part 30

"By G.o.d, you'll tell, or I'll tear it out of you!"

Clay backed to the door, found the key, transferred it to the inner side of the lock, turned it, and put it in his pocket.

The cornered gangman took a chance. He ducked for the shelter of the desk, tore open a drawer, and s.n.a.t.c.hed out an automatic.

Simultaneously the cowpuncher pressed the b.u.t.ton beside the door and plunged the room in darkness. He side-stepped swiftly and without noise.

A flash of lightning split the blackness.

Clay dropped to his knees and crawled away. Another bolt, with its accompanying roar, flamed out.

Still the Westerner did not fire in answer, though he knew just where the target for his bullet was. A plan had come to him. In the blackness of that room one might empty his revolver and not score a hit. To wait was to take a chance of being potted, but he did not want the death of even such a ruffian as Durand on his soul.

The crash of the automatic and the rattle of gla.s.s filled the room.

Jerry, blazing away at some fancied sound, had shattered the window.

Followed a long silence. Durand had changed his tactics and was resolved to wait until his enemy grew restless and betrayed himself.

The delay became a test of moral stamina. Each man knew that death was in that room lying in wait for him. The touch of a finger might send it flying across the floor. Upon the mantel a clock ticked maddeningly, the only sound to be heard.

The contest was not one of grit, but of that unflawed nerve which is so much the result of perfect physical fitness. Clay's years of clean life on the desert counted heavily now. He was master of himself, though his mouth was dry as a whisper and there were goose quills on his flesh.

But Durand, used to the fetid atmosphere of bar-rooms and to the soft living of the great city, found his nerve beginning to crack under the strain. Cold drops stood out on his forehead and his hands shook from excitement and anxiety. What kind of a man was his enemy to lie there in the black silence and not once give a sign of where he was, in spite of crashing bullets? There was something in it hardly human. For the first time in his life Jerry feared he was up against a better man.

Was it possible that he could have killed the fellow at the first shot?

The comfort of this thought whispered hope in the ear of the ex-prize-fighter.

A chair crashed wildly. Durand fired again and yet again, his nerves giving way to a panic that carried him to swift action. He could not have stood another moment without screaming.

There came the faint sound of a hand groping on the wall and immediately after a flood of light filled the room.

Clay stood by the door. His revolver covered the crouching gang leader. His eyes were hard and pitiless.

"Try another shot," he advised ironically.

Jerry did. A harmless click was all the result he got. He knew now that the cowman had tempted him to waste his last shots at a bit of furniture flung across the room.

"You'll tell me what you did with Kitty Mason," said Clay in his low, persuasive voice, just as though there had been no intermission of flying bullets since he had mentioned the girl before.

"You can't kill me, when I haven't a loaded gun," Durand answered between dry lips.

The other man nodded an admission of the point. "That's an advantage you've got of me. You could kill me if I didn't have a gun, because you're a yellow wolf. But I can't kill you. That's right. But I can beat h.e.l.l out of you, and I'm sure goin' to do it."

"Talk's cheap, when you've got a loaded six-gun in your fist," jeered Jerry.

With a flirt of his hand Clay tossed the revolver to the top of a book-case, out of easy reach of a man standing on the floor. He ripped open the b.u.t.tons of his overcoat and slipped out of it, then moved forward with elastic step.

"It's you or me now, Jerry Durand."

The prize-fighter gave a snort of derisive triumph. "You d.a.m.n fool!

I'll eat you alive."

"Mebbeso. I reckon my system can a.s.similate any whalin' you're liable to hand me. Go to it."

Durand had the heavy shoulders and swelling muscles that come from years of training for the ring. Like most pugilists out of active service he had taken on flesh. But the extra weight was not fat, for Jerry kept always in good condition. He held his leadership partly at least because of his physical prowess. No tough in New York would willingly have met him in rough-and-tumble fight.

The younger man was more slightly built. He was a Hermes rather than a Hercules. His muscles flowed. They did not bulge. But when he moved it was with the litheness of a panther. The long lines of shoulder and loin had the flow of tigerish grace. The clear eyes in the brown face told of a soul indomitable in a perfectly synchronized body.

Durand lashed out with a swinging left, all the weight of his body behind the blow. Clay stepped back, shot a hard straight right to the cheek, and ducked the counter. Jerry rushed him, flailing at his foe blow on blow, intending to wear him out by sheer hard hammering. He b.u.t.ted with head and knee, used every foul trick he had learned in his rotten trade of prize-fighting. Active as a wild cat, the Arizonan side-stepped, scored a left on the eye, ducked again, and fought back the furious attack.

The gangman came out of the rally winded, perplexed, and disturbed.

His cheek was bleeding, one eye was in distress, and he had hardly touched his agile opponent.

He rushed again. Nothing but his temper, the lack of self-control that made him see red and had once put him at the mercy of a first-cla.s.s ring general with stamina and a punch, had kept Jerry out of a world championship. He had everything else needed, but he was the victim of his own pa.s.sion. It betrayed him now. His fighting was that of a wild cave man, blind, furious, damaging. He threw away his science and his skill in order to destroy the man he hated. He rained blows on him--fought him with head and knee and fist, was on top of him every moment, controlled by one dominating purpose to make that dancing figure take the dust.

How Clay weathered the storm he did not know. Some blows he blocked, others he side-stepped, a few he took on face and body. He was cool, quite master of himself. Before the fight had gone three minutes he knew that, barring a chance blow, some foul play, or a bit of bad luck, he would win. He was covering up, letting the pugilist wear himself out, and taking only the punishment he must. But he was getting home some heavy body blows that were playing the mischief with Jerry's wind.

The New Yorker, puffing like a sea lion, came out of a rally winded and spent. Instantly Clay took the offensive. He was a trained boxer as well as a fighter, and he had been taught how to make every ounce of his weight count. Ripping in a body blow as a feint, he brought down Durand's guard. A straight left crashed home between the eyes and a heavy solar plexus shook the man to the heels.

Durand tried to close with him. An uppercut jolted him back. He plunged forward again. They grappled, knocking over chairs as they threshed across the room. When they went down Clay was underneath, but as they struck the floor he whirled and landed on top.

The man below fought furiously to regain his feet. Clay's arm worked like a piston rod with short-arm jolts against the battered face.

A wild heave unseated the Arizonan. They clinched, rolled over and b.u.mped against the wall, Clay again on top. For a moment Durand got a thumb in his foe's eye and tried to gouge it out. Clay's fingers found the throat of the gang leader and tightened. Jerry struggled to free himself, catching at the sinewy wrist with both hands. He could not break the iron grip. Gasping for breath, he suddenly collapsed.

Clay got to his feet and waited for Durand to rise. His enemy rolled over and groaned.

"Had enough?" demanded the Westerner.

No answer came, except the heavy, irregular breathing of the man on the floor who was clawing for air in his lungs.

"I'll ask you once more where Kitty Mason is. And you'll tell me unless you want me to begin on you all over again."

The beaten pugilist sat up, leaning against the wall. He spoke with a kind of heavy despair, as though the words were forced out of him. He felt ashamed and disgraced by his defeat. Life for him had lost its savor, for he had met his master.

"She--got away."

"How?"

"They turned her loose, to duck the bulls," came the slow, sullen answer.

"Where?"

"In Central Park."

Probably this was the truth, Clay reflected. He could take the man's word or not as he pleased. There was no way to disprove it now.

He recovered his revolver, threw the automatic out of the window, and walked to the door.