Dolph Gage were a punching-bag.

"Stand up, man, and fight as though you had some sand in you!" Tom
ordered. "Get up steam, and defend yourself."

"I have had enough," Gage gasped. Indeed, his face looked as
though he had.

"Are you a baby?" Reade demanded contemptuously. "Can't you fight
with anything but your tongue!"

"You wait and I'll show you," snarled the badly battered man.

"What's the need of waiting?" Tom jeered, and swung in another blow
that sent Gage to the ground.

"Eh! Josh!" bellowed Gage, with all the breath he had left.
"Hustle o-o-o-over here!"

"Let 'em come!" vaunted Reade. "You'll be done for long before
they can get here."

"I'll have you killed when they get here with the guns!" cried
Gage hoarsely.

Tom continued to punish his opponent. Then Dolph, on regaining
his feet, sought to run. Tom let him go a few steps, then bounded
after him with the speed of the sprinter. Gage was caught by
the shoulders, swung squarely around, and soundly pummelled.

"Let up! Let up!" begged Gage. "I'm beaten. I admit it."

"Beaten, perhaps, but not punished enough," retorted Tom. As
Dolph would no longer stand up, Reade threw himself upon the fellow
and pummelled him fearfully.

"This is no fair fight," protested Gage, now fairly sobbing in his
pain and terror, for good-humored Reade seemed to him now to be the
impersonation of destroying, fury.

"Fair fight?" echoed Reade. "Of course it isn't. This is a
chastisement. You villain, you've done nothing but annoy us and
shoot at us ever since we've met you. You've got to stop it after
this; do you understand?"

"I'll stop it---I'll stop it. Please stop yourself," begged Gage,
now thoroughly cowed.

"I'll wager you'll stop," gritted Tom. "I've never hammered a man
before as I've hammered you, and I'm not half through with you. By
the time I am through with you you'll slink into a corner every time
you see me coming near. You scoundrel, you bully!"

Tom's fists continued to descend. Dolph's tone changed from one
of entreaty to one of dire threats. He would spend the rest of
his life, he declared, in dogging Reade's tracks until he succeeded
in killing the boy.

"That doesn't worry me any. You'll experience a change of
heart---see if you don't," Tom rejoined grimly, as he added to the
pounding that the other was receiving.

Harry Hazelton had struggled to his feet, though he had been unable
to free his hands from the cor