第51章 THE MAN BELOW THE SMOKE(2)

But who had counted on Bug?He had watched this fearful grapple,motionless and terror-stricken,and now with a child's vision he saw what Gresh meant to do.Springing up,he caught the heavy coat on which he had been sitting and flung it on the fire,smothering the embers and putting the cavern into complete darkness.

Vic gained the vantage by this unlooked for movement and the grip shifted.

The fighters fell to the floor and then began the same kind of struggle by which Burleigh had out-generaled big,unconquerable Trench one day.

The two had rolled and fought in college combat from the top of the limestone ridge to the lower campus and landed with Burleigh gripping Trench helpless to defend further.That battle was friend with friend.

This battle was to the death.The blood of both men smeared the floor as they tore at each other like wild beasts,and no man could have told which oftenest had the vantage hold,nor how the strife would end.But it did end soon.

The heavy coat,that had smothered the fire and saved Vic,smoldered a little,then flared into flame,lighting the whole cave,and throwing out black and awful shadows of the two fighters.They were close to the hole in the inner wall now.Gresh's face in that unsteady glare was horrible to see.

He loosed his hold a second,then lunged at Vic with the fury of a mad brute.

And Vic,who had fought the devil in himself to a standstill three hours ago,now caught the fiend outside of him for a finishing blow,and the strength of that last struggle was terrific.

Up to this time Vic had not spoken.

"I killed the other snakes.I'll kill you now,"he growled,as he held the outlaw at length in a conquering grip,his knees on Gresh's breast,his right hand on Gresh's throat.

In that weird light the conqueror's face was only a degree less brutal than the outlaw's face.And Burleigh meant every word,for murder was in his heart and in his clutching fingers.

Beneath the weight of his strength Gresh slowly relaxed,struggling fiercely at first and groping blindly to escape.

Then he began to whine for mercy,but his whining maddened his conqueror more than his blows had done.For such strife is no mere wrestling match.Every blow struck against a fellowman is as the smell of blood to the tiger,feeding a fiendish eagerness to kill.Beside,Burleigh had ample cause for vengeance.

The creature under his grip was not only a bootlegger through whose evil influence men took other lives or lost their own;he had slain one innocent man,Vic's own father,and in the room where his dead mother lay had robbed Vic's home of every valuable thing.He had sworn vengeance on all who bore the name of Burleigh.What fate might await Bug,Vic dared not picture.

One strangling grip now could finish the business forever,and his clutch tightened,as Gresh lay begging like a coward for his own worthless life.

"It's a good thing a fellow has a guardian angel once in a while.

We get pretty close to the edge sometimes and never know how near we are to destruction,"Vic had said to Elinor in here on the April day.

It was not Vic's guardian angel,but little Bug whose white face was thrust between him and his victim,and the touch of a soft little hand and the pleading child-voice that cried:

"Don't kill him,Vic.He's frough of fighting now.

Don't hurt him no more."

Vic staid his hand at the words.The few minutes of this mad-beast duel had made him forget the sound of human voices.

He half lifted himself from Gresh's body at Bug's cry.And Bug,wise beyond his years,quaint-minded little Bug,said,softly:

"Fordive us our debts as we fordive our debtors."Strange,loving words of the Man of Galilee,spoken on the mountain-side long,long ago,and echoed now by childish lips in the dying light of the cavern to these two men,drunk with brute-lust for human blood!For Vic the words struck like blows.

All the years since his father's death he had waited for this hour.

At last he had met and vanquished the man who had taken his father's life,and now,exultant in his victory,came this little child's voice.

The cave darkened.A mist,half blood,half blindness,came before his eyes,but clear to his ears there sounded the ringing words:

"Vengeance is mine;I will repay!"

It was the voice of Discipline calling to his better judgment,as Bug's innocent pleading spoke to the finer man within him.

Under his grip Gresh lay motionless,all power of resistance threshed out of him.

"Are you ready to quit?"Vic questioned,hoarsely,bending over the almost lifeless form.

The outlaw mumbled assent.

"Then I'll let you live,you miserable wretch,and the courts will take care of you."Burleigh himself was faint from strife and loss of blood.

As he relaxed his vigilance the last atom of strength,the last hope of escape returned to Gresh.He sprang to his feet,staggered blindly then,quick as a panther,he leaped through the hole in the farther wall,wriggled swiftly into the blind crevices of the inner cave,and was gone.

It was Trench who dressed Vic's head that night and shielded him until his strength returned.But it was Bond Saxon who counseled patience.

"Don't squeal to the sheriff now,"he urged."The scoundrel is gone,and it would make a nine days'hooray,and nothing would come of it.

He was darned slick to take the time when Funnybone was away.""Why?"Vic asked.

But Bond would not tell why.And Vic never dreamed how much cause Bond Saxon had to dread the day when Tom Gresh should be brought into court,and his own great crime committed in his drunken hours would demand retribution.

So Lagonda Ledge and Sunrise knew nothing of what had occurred.

Burleigh had no recourse but to wait,while Bug buttoned up his lips,as he had done for Burgess out at Pigeon Place,and conveniently "fordot"what he chose not to tell.

But he wandered no more alone about the pretty by-corners of Lagonda Ledge.