u send me to--the
others an' see what happens to you. I tell you, sis 'ud see you dead
before she married you. Guess you best let me go right quick, an' no
more bulldozing."

The boy had suddenly tacked to windward of him, and Will was
confronted with an ugly "lee shore." The trap he had fallen into was
difficult, and he stood thinking. The dwarf had recovered himself, and
his bland look of innocence returned to his eyes.

"I killed 'em nigh all--your chickens," he said earnestly. "I'll kill
the rest later, because they're yours. I can't kill you because you
are stronger than me, but I hate you. I'm goin' right out of here now,
an' you won't stop me."

But the boy had overreached himself. Will was not easy when at bay.

He took a step forward and seized him by his two arms.

"You hate me, eh?" he said cruelly. "I can't hand you over to the
boys, eh?" He wrenched the arms with a twist at each question, and, at
each twist, the boy uttered that weird cry that was scarcely human.
"Well, if I can't," Will went on through his clenched teeth, wrenching
his arms as he spoke, "it cuts both ways; you'll get your med'cine
here instead, and you daren't speak of it--see, see, see!"

The boy's cries were louder and more prolonged. Terror had again taken
its place in his eyes. Yet he seemed to have no power for resistance.
He was held in a paralysis of unutterable fear. With each of Will's
three final words the lad's arms were nearly wrenched from their
sockets, and, as the victim's final cry broke louder than the rest,
the door was flung open and the candle set flickering.

"Stop that!" cried a voice, directly behind Will, and the man turned
to find the burly form of Peter Blunt filling the doorway.

But Will was beside himself with rage and hatred.

"Eh?" he demanded. "Who says to stop? He's the chicken-killer. I got
him red-handed." He held up one of the boy's blood-stained hands.

"I don't care what he is. If you don't loose him instantly I'll throw
you out of this shack." The big man's voice was calm, but his eyes
were blazing.

Will released the boy, but only to turn fiercely upon the intruder.

"And who in thunder-are you to interfere?" he cried savagely.

Without a moment's hesitation Peter walked straight up to him. For a
second he stood towering over him, eye to eye. Then he turned his
back, and thrust out one great arm horizontally across the other's
body, as though to warn him back while he spoke to Elia. Th