Frank Merriwell's Triumph Part 61

FORCED TO WRITE.

d.i.c.k's daring and reckless break for liberty might have been successful but for the fact that the outer door had been closed and securely fastened after the entrance of Spotted Dan.

Dan went down with a shock that jarred the whole building, and the boy leaped toward the door. Both Dillon and Mat uttered cries of astonishment and grabbed at him. He avoided their hands and reached the door, but as he was trying to unfasten it they fell on him.

Young Merriwell's fighting blood was up, and for at least five minutes he gave the ruffians the hardest sort of a struggle. Using hands and feet in unison, he made them howl as he repeatedly hit and kicked them.

With all his force, he drove his knee into Mat's stomach and doubled the fellow up like a jackknife.

At this juncture the boy had nearly whipped both the men. Dillon was panting and dazed, but he had drawn a pistol and reversed it in his hand, so that he gripped the barrel. With the b.u.t.t of the weapon he struck a blinding blow at the fighting boy's head, and by chance the blow landed full and fair.

Down d.i.c.k dropped and lay stunned on the floor. Dillon stood looking down at the lad, muttering savagely, while Mat gasped for breath and held both hands on his stomach. Spotted Dan had recovered from the first shock, and now stood, with his hands on his hips and his feet wide apart, watching what transpired. He had not even lifted a hand to take part in the struggle.

"Well, drat the kid!" snarled Dillon. "He sure comes nigh slipping right through our fingers."

"Confound him!" panted Mat, still gasping for breath. "He soaks his knee inter my solar plexus and pretty nigh puts me out."

"Haw! haw! haw!" laughed Spotted Dan, throwing back his head. "Well, you two gents sure has a highly interesting time of it. So that was why yer didn't want me to go for my blanket! So that's what yer had in the back room yer didn't want me ter see! Well, I reckons I has clapped my peepers on this yere youngster before. I opines I smells your little game. I rather jedge I understands why you drops the railroad job. You seems ter strike another job that interests you a heap more."

Without paying any attention to the pockmarked fellow, Dillon bent over the motionless boy, muttering:

"I wonder if I cracks his skull? That certain was a good rap I gave him."

Blood was trickling down from d.i.c.k's hair, and on one side of his head was a cut.

"I don't care ef you did finish him!" grated Mat.

"Well, I does," a.s.serted Dillon. "We knocks ourselves out of a good thing ef that happens."

"A good thing," laughed Spotted Dan. "Well, gents, you counts me in on that good thing. You plays no game like this on me, none at all!"

d.i.c.k stirred and opened his eyes.

"He is all right," said Mat.

The boy looked up at the two ruffians near him and then struggled to his elbow, his black eyes full of defiance.

"Give me a fair show and I'll try it again!" he weakly exclaimed. "If I'd a fair show then I wouldn't be here now. I was weaponless. You were three to one against me, and still you had to use a weapon to put me down and out."

"Haw! haw! haw!" again roared Spotted Dan. "These yere Merriwells sure is fighters."

Mat turned on him hotly.

"I reckon you found that out in Prescott the first time you met Frank Merriwell," he said.

Dan suddenly stopped laughing and scowled blackly.

"Don't git so personal!" he cried. "Mebbe I don't like it any!"

d.i.c.k lifted his hand to his head and saw blood on his fingers when he looked at them. Then from his pocket he took a handkerchief, which he knotted about his head.

"Better put your bird back into the cage," advised Dan. "Ef yer don't, mebbe he flutters some more. When he flutters he is dangerous."

"That's right," nodded Dillon, laying hold of d.i.c.k. "We will chuck him back there in a hurry."

"Take your hands off me, you brute!" panted the boy. "I will go back of my own accord. Let me alone."

Dillon dragged him to his feet, but, with a wrench, he suddenly tore free. If the ruffians expected him to resume the effort, they soon found he had no such intention, for, with a remarkably steady step, he walked across the floor to the open door of his prison room.

In the doorway he turned and faced them, the handkerchief about his head already showing a crimson stain on one side. His dark eyes flashed with unutterable scorn and contempt.

"I know you all three!" he exclaimed. "Wait till my brother finds out about this business. The whole Southwest won't be large enough to hide you in safety."

Then he disappeared into the room, scornfully closing the door behind him.

"Gents," said Spotted Dan, "for real, genuine sand, give me a kid like that!"

Then the bar was once more slipped into its socket, and the door was made secure. With throbbing head and fiery pulse, d.i.c.k lay on the bunk in that back room as the remainder of the night slipped away.

With the coming of another day he heard the faint hoofbeats of a horse outside, and knew some one had ridden up. Then the muttering of voices in the next room came to him, and his curiosity, in spite of his injury, caused him to again slip to the door and listen at the crack beneath it.

He heard the voice of a strange man saying:

"I am to take the letter back myself. The youngster must be forced to write it. Leave it to me; I will make him do it."

"Partner," said the hoa.r.s.e voice of Spotted Dan, "I opines you takes a mighty big contract when you tries to force that kid inter doing anything of the sort."

"Leave it ter me," urged the stranger. "Let me in there, and I will turn the trick."

A few minutes later d.i.c.k hastily got away from the door and pretended to be sleeping on the bunk, his ears telling him the bar was being removed.

A flood of light shone in, for there was no window to that dark room to admit daylight. The four men entered, one of them bringing a lighted lamp in his hand.

The boy pretended to awaken and then sat up. He saw that the newcomer had a mask over his face, making it plain he feared recognition by the captive.

"Yere," said Spotted Dan, "is a gent what wants ter see you some, my young gamec.o.c.k. He has a right important piece of business to transact with yer, and I reckons it pays yer ter do as he tells yer."

The masked man came and stood looking at the boy.

"Kid," he said, in what seemed to be an a.s.sumed manner of fierceness, "you've got to write a letter to your brother, and you will write it just as I tells yer. Understand that? If you refuse, we will stop bothering with you any by wringing your neck and throwing you out for buzzard bait. We can't afford to waste time fooling, and we mean business. Time is mighty important to us."

"What do you want me to write?" asked d.i.c.k.

"We wants you to write a letter telling your brother that you are in the hands of men who proposes to carve you up piecemeal unless he makes terms with a certain gent who wants to deal with him for some of his property. No need to mention this gent's name, mind that. Don't put it into the letter. You tells your brother nothing whatever about us save that we has you all tight and fast. But you tells him that, onless he comes to terms immediate, we sends him to-morrow one of your thumbs. In case he delays a while longer, we sends him t'other thumb. Then, if he remains foolish and won't deal any, we kindly sends him your right ear.

If that don't bring him around a whole lot sudden, we presents him with your left ear. Arter that we gits tired when we waits twenty-four hours, and we shoots you full of lead and lets it go at that. Mat, pull over that yere box right close to the kid's bunk, where he can sit all comfortable-like and write on it."

A box was dragged out of a corner and placed before young Merriwell, who sat on the edge of the bunk. Then a sheet of paper was produced and spread in front of the lad, while the stub of a lead pencil was thrust into his fingers.

"Now write," savagely ordered the masked man--"write just what I tells yer to a minute ago!"