It was the evening of the day after Harry, who had insisted on trudging
up and down the line all day, instead of using his horse, had a touch of
heat headache.
He was not in a serious condition, but he needed rest. He dropped into
one of the chairs on the Cactus House porch and prepared to doze.
“Is there anything I can get for you, or do for you, old chap?” inquired
Tom, coming out on the porch after supper and looking remarkably
comfortable and contented.
“No; just let me doze,” begged Harry. “I feel a trifle drowsy.”
“Then, if you're going to give a concert through your nose,” smiled Tom,
“I may as well protect myself by going some distance away.”
“Go along.”
“I believe I'll take a walk. Probably, too, the ice cream man will be
richer when I get back.”
Tom went down into the street and sauntered along. He had walked but a
few blocks when he met another young man in white ducks.
“Doc, I'm looking for the place where the ice cream flows,” Reade
hinted. “Can I tempt you?”
“Without half trying,” laughed Dr. Furniss the young physician who had
gone out to camp to attend the Man-killer victim.
As they were seated together over their ice cream, Dr. Furniss inquired:
“By the way, do you ever see my one-time patient nowadays?”
“The fellow we exhumed from the Man-killer?”
“The same.”
“I see him every morning,” laughed Tom. “Really, I can't help seeing
him, for the man puts himself in my way daily to say good morning. And
as yet I haven't learned his name.”
“His name is Tim Griggs,” replied Dr. Furniss. “He's a fine fellow, too,
in his rough, manly way. He's wonderfully grateful to you, Reade. Do you
know why?”
“Haven't an idea.”
“Well, Tim's sheet anchor in life is a little girl.”
“Sweetheart?”
“After a fashion,” laughed the young doctor. “The girl is his daughter,
eight years old. She's everything to Tim, for his wife is dead. The
child lives with somewhat distant relatives, in a New England town.
Tim sends all his spare money to her, and so the child is probably well
looked after. Tim told me, with a big choke in his voice, that, if the
Man-killer had swallowed him up, it would have been all up with the
little girl, too. When money stopped coming the relatives would probably
have set the child to being household drudge for the family. Tim has a
round dozen of different photos of the child taken at various times.”
“Then I'm extra glad we got him out of the Man-killer,” said Tom rather
huskily.
“I knew you'd be glad, Reade. You're that kind of fellow.”
“Tim Griggs, then, is probably one of our steady men,” Tom remarked,
after a while.
“Steady! Why the man generally sends all of his month's pay, except
about eight dollars, to his daughter. From what he tells me she is
a sharp, thrifty little thing. She pays her own board bill with her
relatives, chooses and pays for her own clothes, and puts the balance of
the money in bank for herself and her father.”
“Does Tim ever go to see her?”
“Once in two years, regularly. He'd go east oftener, but it costs too
much money. He'd live near her, but he says he can earn more money down
here on the desert. Tim even talks about a college education for that
idolized girl. She looks out just as sharply for her daddy. Whenever Tim
is ready to make a trip east, she sends him the money for his fare. The
two have a great old time together.”
“Tim may marry again one of these days, and then the young lady may not
have as happy a time,” remarked Tom thoughtfully.
“I hinted as much to Griggs,” replied Dr. Furniss, “but he told me,
pretty strongly, that there'll be no new wife for him until he has
helped the daughter to find her own place in life.”
“Say!” muttered Tom, with a queer little choke in his voice. “The heroes
in life generally aren't found on the high spots, are they?”
“They're not,” retorted the doctor solemnly.
Half an hour later, after having eaten their fill of ice cream, Dr.
Furniss and Engineer Reade parted, Tom strolling on alone in the
darkness.
“I can It get that fellow Griggs out of my mind,” muttered Tom. “To
think that a splendid fellow like him is working as a laborer! I wonder
if he isn't fitted for something better--something that pays better?
Look out, Tom Reade, you old softy, or you'll be doing something
foolish, all on account of a primary school girl in New England whom
you've never seen, and never will! I wonder--hello!”
As Tom had walked along his head had sunk lower and lower in thought.
His sudden exclamation had been brought forth by the fact that he had
bumped violently into another human being.
“Cantch er look out where you're going?” demanded an ugly voice.
“I should have been looking out, my friend,” Tom replied amiably. “It
was very careless of me. I trust, that I haven't done you serious harm.”
“Quit yer sass!” ordered the other, who was a tall, broad-shouldered and
very surly looking fellow of thirty.
“I don't much blame you for being peevish,” Reade went on. “Still, I
think there has been no serious harm done. Good night, friend.”
“No, ye don't!” snarled the other. “Nothing of the slip-away-easy style,
like that!”
“Why, what do you want?” I asked Tom, opening his eyes in genuine
surprise.
“Ye thick-headed idiot!” rasped the surly stranger. “Ye--”
From that the stranger launched into a strain of abuse that staggered
the young engineer.
“Say no more,” begged Reade generously. “I accept your apology, just as
you've phrased it.”
“Apology, ye fool!” growled the stranger.
“That won't do. Put up your hands!”
“Why?”
“So ye can fight, ye--”
“Fight?” echoed Tom, with a shake of his bead. “On a hot night like
this? No, sir! I refuse.”
Tom would have passed peaceably on his way, but the stranger suddenly
let go a terrific right-hander. Had Tom Reade received the blow he would
have gone to the ground. But the young engineer's athletic training
stood by him. He slid out, easily and gracefully, but was compelled to
wheel and face his assailant.
“Don't,” urged Tom. “It's too hot.”
“I'm hot myself,” leered the stranger, dancing nearer.
“You look it,” Tom admitted. “If you don't stop dancing, you'll soon be
hotter. It makes me warm to look at you.”
“Stop this one, ye tin-horn!” snarled the stranger.
“Certainly,” agreed Tom, blocking the blow. “However, I wish you
wouldn't be so strenuous. One of us may get hurt.”
This last escaped Reade as he blocked the blow, and again displayed a
neat little bit of footwork.
“Let's see you stop this one!” taunted the bully.
“Certainly,” agreed Tom, and did so.
“And this one. And this! Here's another!”
By this time the blows were raining in fast and thick. Tom's agile
footwork kept him out of reach of the hard, hammer-like fists of the
stranger.
Tom had been bred in athletics. He was comparative master of boxing,
but before this interchange of blows had gone far the young engineer
realized that he had met a doughty opponent.
What Tom didn't know was that his present foe was an ex-prizefighter,
who had sunk low in the scale of life.
What the lad didn't even suspect was that the man had been hired to pick
a fight with him, and that the fight was for desperate stakes.
“Have you pounded me all you think necessary?” asked Tom coolly, after
more than a minute's hard interchange of blows in which neither man had
gained any notable advantage.
“No, ye slant-eared boob!” roared the assailant. “Ye--”
Here he launched into another stream of abuse.
“You said all that before,” remarked Tom, with a new flash in his eyes.
Then fully aroused, he went to work in earnest, intending to drive his
opponent back and down him.
The fighting became terrific. There was little effort now to parry, for
each fighter had become intent on bringing the other to earth.
Tom was soon panting as he fought, for his opponent was heavier, taller
and altogether out of the youth's fistic class.
“If I can only reach his wind once, and topple him over!” thought Reade.
A blow aimed at his jaw he failed to block. The impact sent the young
engineer half staggering. Another blow, and Tom dropped, knocked out.
At that very instant a street door near by opened noiselessly.
“I've got him,” leered the bully, bending over the senseless form of Tom
Reade.
“Bring him in!” ordered a voice behind the open doorway.