“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 cords that held them behind his back.  “You’re not talking quite the way you did a few minutes ago, Gage,” Harry put in dryly.

“You’ll see—–­both of you young pups!” moaned the battered wretch.  “Ask any one, and they’ll tell you that Dolph Gage never overlooks a pounding such as I’ve had.”

“And you got it from the boy that you were going to teach something,” jeered Hazelton, “Gage, you know a little more about Tom Reade, now, don’t your?”

Then Harry straightened up, as he caught sight of moving objects in the distance.

“Get through with him, Tom” advised the other young engineer.  “I see Eb and Josh coming on the run.  They’ll have the guns.  We’ve got to look out for ourselves.”

Tom flung the badly beaten man from him where he lay on the ground moaning over his hurts and vowing vengeance on Tom.

“Stand still, Harry, and I’ll have you free in a jiffy,” Tom proposed, hauling out his pocket knife.

“It won’t do for us to stand still too long,” urged Hazelton, as his chum began to slash at the cords.  “The other scoundrels will kill us when they see what’s been going on here.”

“No, they won’t,” Tom promised calmly.  “We’ll take care of ’em both.  You wait and see which one I take.  Then you take the other.  We’ll handle ’em to the finish.”

This seemed like foolhardy talk when it was considered that the other two men would return armed.  But Harry had unlimited confidence in his friend, and so followed Tom, crouching, until they had hidden behind bushes along the trail.

“Where be you, Dolph?” called the voice of Eb, as the pair drew near.

“He’s over there,” spoke Reade, springing out of the bushes.  “You’ll join him after a bit.”

Neither Eb nor Josh was armed.  Tom sailed into Eb, while Harry sprang at Josh.  For a few minutes the trail was a scene of swift action, indeed.  Shortly Eb and Josh tried to run away, as Gage had done, but each time the young engineers caught them and compelled them to renew the fight.

“My man’s going to sleep, now, Harry!” Tom called, and drove in a knockout blow with his left.

Josh swiftly followed Eb to the ground.