The ex-prize-fighter's flow of language dried up. He fell silent and stood swallowing his furious rage. It had come home to him that this narrow-flanked young fellow with the close-gripped jaw and the cool, steady eyes was entirely unmoved by his threats.
"Quite through effervescing?" asked Clay contemptuously.
The gang leader made no answer. He chose to nurse his venom silently.
"Where's Kitty Mason?"
Still no answer.
"I asked you what you've done with Kitty Mason?"
"What's that to you?"
"I'm close-herdin' that li'l' girl and I'll not have yore dirty hands touch her. Where is she?"
"That's my business."
"By God, 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 snatched out an automatic.
Simultaneously the cowpuncher pressed the button 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 glass 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 hell 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 buttons 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 damn fool!
I'll eat you alive."
"Mebbeso. I reckon my system can assimilate 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 butted 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-class 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 passion. 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 bumped 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.
"Joe's tied up in a back room," he said over his shoulder.
Thirty seconds later Clay stepped into the street. He walked across to a subway station and took an uptown train.
Men looked at him curiously. His face was bruised and bleeding, his clothes disheveled, his hat torn. Clay grinned and thought of the old answer:
"They'd ought to see the other man."
One young fellow, apparently a college boy, who had looked upon the wine when it was red, was moved to come over and offer condolence.
"Say, I don't want to butt in or anything, but—he didn't do a thing to you, did he?"
"I hit the edge of a door in the dark," explained Clay solemnly.
"That door must have had several edges." The youth made a confidential admission. "I've got an edge on myself, sort of."
"Not really?" murmured Clay politely.
"Surest thing you know. Say, was it a good scrap?"
"I'd hate to mix in a better one."
"Wish I'd been there." The student fumbled for a card. "Didn't catch your name?"
Clay had no intention of giving his name just now to any casual stranger. He laughed and hummed the chorus of an old range ditty:
"I'm a poor lonesome cowboy,
I'm a poor lonesome cowboy,
I'm a poor lonesome cowboy,
And a long way from home."
CHAPTER XXIII
JOHNNIE COMES INTO HIS OWN
When Clay shot off at a tangent from the car and ceased to function as a passenger, Johnnie made an effort to descend and join his friend, but already the taxi was traveling at a speed that made this dangerous. He leaned out of the open door and shouted to the driver.
"Say, lemme out, doggone you. I wantta get out right here."
The chauffeur paid not the least attention to him. He skidded round a corner, grazing the curb, and put his foot on the accelerator. The car jumped forward.
The passenger, about to drop from the running-board, changed his mind.
He did not want to break a bone or two in the process of alighting.
"'F you don't lemme off right away I'll not pay you a cent for the ride," Johnnie shouted. "You got no right to pack me off thisaway."
The car was sweeping down the wet street, now and again skidding dangerously. The puncher felt homesick for the security of an outlaw bronco's back. This wild East was no place for him. He had been brought up in a country where life is safe and sane and its inhabitants have a respect for law. Tame old Arizona just now made a big appeal to one of its sons.
The machine went drunkenly up the street, zigzagging like a homeward-bound reveler. It swung into Fourth Avenue, slowing to take the curve. At the widest sweep of the arc Johnnie stepped down. His feet slid from under him and he rolled to the curb across the wet asphalt. Slowly he got up and tested himself for broken bones. He was sure he had dislocated a few hips and it took him some time to persuade himself he was all right, except for some bruises.
But Johnnie free had no idea what to do. He was as helpless as Johnnie imprisoned in the flying cab. Of what Clay's plan had been he had not the remotest idea. Yet he could not go home and do nothing. He must keep searching. But where? One thing stuck in his mind. His friend had mentioned that he would like to get a chance to call the police to find out whether Kitty had been rescued. He was anxious on that point himself. At the first cigar-store he stopped and was put on the wire with headquarters. He learned that a car supposed to be the one wanted had been driven into Central Park by the police a few minutes earlier.
Johnnie's mind carried him on a straight line to the simplest decision. He ran across to Fifth Avenue and climbed into a bus going uptown. If Kitty was in Central Park that was the place to search for her. It did not occur to him that by the time he reached there the car of the abductors would be miles away, nor did he stop to think that his chances of finding her in the wooded recesses of the Park would not be worth the long end of a hundred to one bet.
At the Seventy-Second Street entrance Johnnie left the bus and plunged into the Park. He threaded his way along walks beneath the dripping trees. He took a dozen shower baths under water-laden shrubbery. Sometimes he stopped to let out the wild war-whoop with which he turned cattle at the point in the good old days a month or so ago.
The gods are supposed to favor fools, children, and drunken men. Johnnie had been all of these in his day. To-night he could claim no more than one at most of these reasons for a special dispensation. He would be twenty-three "comin' grass," as he would have expressed it, and he hadn't taken a drink since he came to New York, for Clay had voted himself dry years ago and just now he carried his follower with him.
But the impish gods who delight in turning upside down the best-laid plans of mice and men were working overtime to-night. They arranged it that a girl cowering among the wet bushes bordering an unfrequented path heard the "Hi—yi—yi" of Arizona and gave a faint cry for help. That call reached Johnnie and brought him on the run.
A man beside the girl jumped up with a snarl, gun in hand.
But the Runt had caught a sight of Kitty. A file of fixed bayonets could not have kept him from trying to rescue her. He dived through the brush like a football tackler.
A gun barked. The little man did not even know it. He and the thug went down together, rolled over, clawed furiously at each other, and got to their feet simultaneously. But the cowpuncher held the gun now. The crook glared at him for a moment, and bolted for the safety of the bushes in wild flight.
Johnnie fired once, then forgot all about the private little war he had started. For his arms were full of a sobbing Kitty who clung to him while she wept and talked and exclaimed all in a breath.
"I knew you'd come, Johnnie. I knew you would—you or Clay. They left me here with him while they got away from the police. . . . Oh, I've been so scared. I didn't know—I thought—"
"'S all right. 'S all right, li'l' girl. Don't you cry, Kitty. Me 'n' Clay won't let 'em hurt you none. We sure won't."
"They said they'd come back later for me," she wept, uncertain whether to be hysterical or not.
"I wisht they'd come now," he bragged valorously, and for the moment he did.
She nestled closer, and Johnnie's heart lost a beat. He had become aware of a dull pain in the shoulder and of something wet trickling down his shoulder. But what is one little bullet in your geography when the sweetest girl in the world is in your arms?
"I ain't nothin' but a hammered-down li'l' hayseed of a cowpuncher," he told her, his voice trembling, "an' you're awful pretty an'—an'—"
A flag of color fluttered to her soft cheeks. The silken lashes fell shyly. "I think you're fine and dandy, the bravest man that ever was."
He stopped, abashed. To him this creature of soft curves was of heaven-sent charm. All the beauty and vitality of her youth called to him. It seemed to Johnnie that God spoke through her. Which is another way of saying that he was in love with her.
She made a rustling little stir in his arms and lifted a flushed face very tender and appealing. In the darkness her lips slowly turned to his.
Johnnie chose that inopportune moment to get sick at the stomach.
"I—I'm goin' to faint," he announced, and did. When he returned to his love-story Johnnie's head was in Kitty's lap and a mounted policeman was in the foreground of the scene. His face was wet from the mist of fine rain falling.
"Don't move. Some one went for a car," she whispered, bending over him so that flying tendrils of her hair brushed his cheek. "Are you—badly hurt?"
He snorted. "I'm a false alarm. Nothin' a-tall. He jes' creased me."
"You're so brave," she cried admiringly.
He had never been told this before. He suspected it was not true, but to hear her say it was manna to his hungry soul.
The policeman helped him into a taxicab after first aid had been given and Johnnie's diagnosis verified. On the way home the cowpuncher made love. He discovered that this can be done quite well with one arm, both parties being willing.
The cab stopped at the house of a doctor and the shoulder was dressed.
The doctor made one pardonable mistake.
"Get your wife to give you this sleeping powder if you find you can't sleep," he said.
"Y'betcha," answered Johnnie cheerfully.
Kitty looked at him reproachfully and blushed. She scolded him about it after they reached the apartment where they lived.
Her new fiancé defended himself. "He's only a day or two prema-chure, honey. It wasn't hardly worth while explainin'," he claimed.
The Big-Town Round-Up Page 14
