CHAPTER XXI--IKE SLUMPS "NUTCRACKER"
Ralph was taken completely off his guard. He struggled violently, buthis assailants had the advantage.
One of them pinioned his arms. The other tied the rope about them. Asecond rope was whipped about his ankles, and secured.
"Push him down," spoke a quick voice.
They half-lifted, half-dropped their prisoner. Ralph was thrust downinto an old easy-chair.
"Now then, shut the door and fetch the lamp," was the next order.
Ralph was too astonished to say anything for a minute or two. One ofhis captors flitted from the room. The front door slammed shut. Thenthe fellow ran to the kitchen and brought in a lamp and placed it on atable.
"Well," he said with a great chuckling guffaw, "how's Mr. RalphFairbanks?"
"Slump--Ike Slump, eh?" spoke Ralph calmly, but following a start ofsome surprise.
"Don't miss me, Ralphy," suggested Slump's companion in a tone ofsneering mockery.
"And Mort Bemis?" added Ralph coolly. "Good-evening, gentlemen--whatcan I do for you?"
"Nervy!" sneered Slump--"but it won't last. It's what we're going to dothat will interest you, Ralph Fairbanks."
Ralph looked over the enemy with a steadfast glance. They werecertainly "dressed to kill." He noticed that their clothing was of themost expensive grade. For all that, it was disordered and ill-fitting.
They looked as they had not slept regularly for a week, and when theydid, seemed to have made any old place their resting-spot. Their facesbore marks of dissipation.
Their whole bearing indicated that the money they had recently come intohad helped them down the road of idleness and crime.
"We've come back to the Junction specially to see you," observed Bemis,sinking upon a sofa opposite their helpless prisoner.
"Yes, unfinished business, ha! ha!" jeered Ike Slump, looking mightilybad and vicious as he proceeded to light a cigarette. "We owe you one,as you'll perhaps remember. You put the police onto me."
Ralph had not done this. As the reader knows, it was the act of VanSherwin. Ralph, however, did not care to enlighten his captors as tothe real facts of the case.
"And you stole my job from me," added Mort Bemis savagely. "You've putYoung Slavin up to queer us, too."
"So," resumed Slump, "seeing we did one good job for a certain liberalgentleman in Stanley Junction, we'll try and please him in another. Atthe same time, we get good and even with you for ourselves."
"I can easily guess you might please Gasper Farrington with anythingthat means harm to me, if that is what you are getting at," observedRalph pointedly.
"Who mentioned Farrington?" demanded Slump.
"He went on your bond. It is pretty easy to guess you are in cahootswith him in some way," bluntly retorted Ralph.
Mort Bemis got up from his seat and strode up and down the room. Througha long tirade of his fancied wrongs, he worked himself up into aseething fury, real or pretended. Ralph's cool unconcern nettled him.Once or twice he referred to the saving of the limited, and to otheracts that had made Ralph popular and his friends proud of him.
"You robbed me of my chance," he snarled. "If I'd have been on deck,your luck would have fallen to me. I'm out for revenge. I'm going topay you off."
"With bluff and blow?" demanded Ralph sarcastically.
Bemis leaned over and slapped Ralph's face.
"Don't you sass me!" he gritted out. "It won't be healthy for you."
"You're a mean coward!" said Ralph. "Give me a free show, and we'll seewho is the better man."
"I'll show you something!" snapped Bemis venomously. "Do you know whatwe are going to do with you? I'm going to fix you, Ralph Fairbanks, soyou will never crow over me--you'll never pull another lever."
"Jaw less--get into action," directed Ike Slump tartly.
"Where's the fixtures?"
"Here they are."
Ike reached over to a chair and picked up something that jangled. Ralphregarded the trap-like apparatus disclosed with some interest.
Bemis took it from the hand of his associate.
"Do you know what this is?" he inquired of Ralph.
"I don't."
"It's a nutcracker, see?"
Ike grinned as if that was a big joke.
"You're the funniest fellow in the world, Mort!" he chuckled gleesomely.
The instrument Bemis displayed somewhat resembled a nutcracker. Itopened and was operated by hand pressure. It had fine grooves. Thesetallied to the fingers on a human hand.
"They used that on the scabs, the time of the big railroad strike,"exclaimed Bemis grimly. "The strikers did."
Ralph started. He recognized the "nutcracker" now. It was one of thebrutal instruments of torture that had been used to terrify and cripplethe men who had taken the places of the strikers, during the labortroubles on the Great Northern about a year back.
"We put your hand in these grooves," proceeded Bemis. "Crack! Yourknuckles are gone. See? The man who can pull a lever ever afterwardsis a dandy. See?"
"I see," nodded Ralph, his lips set firmly, though his heart misgavehim. "Do you mean, Mort Bemis, brute, coward, and traitor, to thehonest workingman's cause, that you intend to maim me for life tosatisfy a low, paltry spirit of revenge?"
"Mr. Ralph Fairbanks," declared Bemis coolly, "I--mean--just--that."
"Have you considered what this job is likely to cost you?" inquiredRalph.
"It didn't cost the strikers anything," jeered Ike.
"I am not mixed up in any strike," observed Ralph. "I warn you I havegood friends, and any such fiendish act as that you contemplate willsend them on your track to the ends of the earth."
"That'll do," growled Bemis. "Grab his hand--the right one, Ike."
"Got it--he's easy to handle," said Slump.
The young towerman was indeed easy to handle, for the reason that hisarms were securely surrounded by the ropes, both above and below theelbows.
Ike seized the wrist of Ralph's right hand and Bemis advanced with the"nutcracker."
A cold shiver ran over Ralph as his fingers were encased in the groovesof the iron hand.
He remembered having once seen a victim of the strike, a poor fellow whohad gone around with the knuckles of one hand twisted so out of shapethat he would never be able to straighten out his fingers again.
Ralph could not resist. If he shouted for help, he knew that he wouldbe brutally silenced. He thought of his mother, of the bright ambitionsabout to be wrecked by two worthless, cruel enemies.
Then Ralph closed his eyes. He set his lips firmly, and silently prayedthat his wicked inquisitors would not dare carry out fully theirannounced programme.
"I'm ready," sounded Bemis' heartless tones.
"So am I," chorused Ike. "You'll wish you'd minded your own businessand let us alone, Ralph Fairbanks."
Bemis began to put the pressure on the vile instrument of torture.Ralph's breath came quick. He felt his fingers compress.
Chug!
Ralph strained his hearing at the new sound. He opened his eyes with athrill.
The pressure on his hand was relaxed. The "nutcracker," released byBemis with strange suddenness, dangled at Ralph's finger tips for aninstant. Then it dropped harmless to the carpet with a dull clang.
Ralph saw something cleave the air directly in front of him. It was ahuman fist. It met the broad, astonished face of Mort Bemis squarely.
That shuddering, sickening sound echoed out. It reminded Ralph of thenoise made by a boy playing with a big lump of clay, and spatting itviolently against a wooden fence.
He saw Bemis fall back with a roar of awful pain. In that fleetingglimpse, it looked to Ralph as if Mort's face had been flattened outfrom ear to ear. His nose seemed to have disappeared In its place was avague red blotch of color.
Bemis fell flat backwards, his head striking a chair and smashing offits arm.
"You next!" shouted a terrible voice.
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Ike Slump had already dropped Ralph's hand. With a sharp cry of alarmhe tried to dodge back.
Again that great fist swung forward. Ralph turned pale, and he felt hisflesh creep.
As he looked, he saw Ike Slump reeling. There was a ghostly grin on hisface. His whole lower row of teeth was gone.
"I said I'd do it," spoke Ralph's rescuer and the assailant of hisenemies, "and I've kept my word."
Young Slavin proceeded to liberate Ralph from the ropes that bound him.