BAD END VALLEY

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13269, 20 February 1941, Page 3

BAD END VALLEY

CHATTEK XXII

DANNY GIVES IN

r.rrick threw open the door of Sf hack, and jerked his head S?l norUy to Mcßann. "I'll take pel ' emP he " l»e --d. "Get back to an' help Bat keep an e ye on the Mex/' out, closing the

Warrick stood looking from Ruth ninny The latter, completely ! 0 iedTp save for his legs, was tied "a r ckety ** ****** w f h " S ack to the hearth. Ruth, unbound, st „ o d by the window, her face avertedCarrick grinned at them, savourin£/tne taste of his victory. EveryStag was going right for him First 3 aU Barker, then Danny and Saii- • tos. had seemed to have outwi ted him, but he had beaten them all in the end. He had taken the final tricks in the game, and that was what counted. Danny was glaring at him rebelli-

ously. .•Well, what d'yuh want now, Cai-

rick?" "You're gonna do me a little favour, Danny," Carrick said meaningly ' "You're gonna write out something for me." "Yeah? What?"

"Jest a note sayin' that yuh agree that Seth Saton owed me the dough 1 got here" —Carrick tapped his chest—"an' that I'm within my rights in takin' it." Danny laughed fiercely., "I wish yuh wouldn't be so comic, King. It hurts to laugh, tied up this away."

Carriek stood over him. Deliberately, he slashed him twice across the face, with his open hand. "Better talk soft to me, Danny. I got yuh where I want yuh, a.n' it won't pay yuh to make me mad. You're gonna write that note." "Even if I did write it, it wouldn't do yuh much good that I can see. But anyhow I ain't givin' yuh the chance to find out whether it'd be any good or not. I wouldn't give yuh that much satisfaction. I ain't writin' it." Carriek struck him again. "I told yuh not to get me mad. Yuh ain't placed so's yuh can get away with it. I'm feelin' pretty good jest now —hut I'm liable to get some rougher if you're obstinate." Danny's jaw was set. He was staring dourly at the floor. "I ain't writin' anything." Carriek stood back and surveyed his prisoner with a malevolent satisfaction. "Somehow I figure you'll do as you're told," he said confidently. Ruth had turned her head to watch the two men. Gradually the realisation blossomed in her mind of What Carriek meant. Unable to restrain herself, she burst out: "King! You don't mean !" He leered at her. "Seems you catch on quicker than your boy friend— he did think he was your boy-friend for a spell, didn't he ? Yeah, yuh got it. If he won't w *ite out that statement when he's ssked, I'm gonna force him to do it. I want it pretty bad, an' I ain't stoppih' at much to get it." She was staring at him in blank borror. What are yuh gonna do?" she demanded. He chuckled. "There's a lot of ways of makin' teller see reason. One way is to a ng him up by his thumbs with his oe s jest touchin' the floor—a fel- / I knowed.who'd seen the Injuns * Mexico do it said it worked ?Wpell. Or else yuh can drag SS with one end of a. reata a " Dd his fe et an' the other tied to 411^ 0r there ' s jest a sood laightforward noggin'— yu h chuck give h ° Ver Wm When he faint * an ' agam-!H_M Plece more tiU he faints

cut in harshly: He 's Wuffln-' hlm haZe yUh ' RUthten Y H^ ihink I>m bluffin '' huh? Lis " this L!' lf yuh don,t wann a see best trv T" 11 ' for yuh'd aia'tsaf him that it you got t 0 call my bluff. I figure Wen t eHOUgh sense to know darn She^ anWhatrmsayin '-" less g lint ood lookin S !nto the ruthM° f his e y es for a second. „ u 8 &e said slowly c x Suess yuh d 0„ '•s a r s c e e T T ng round ° n Da™y- • Bee s i ain't foolin'. Why

BY W. B. B4NNERMAN

don't yuh get wise to yourself an fling in your hand when it's a losin

one? I hold all the aces, an' you ain't got a leg to stand on. Yuh'd better do as you're told, before I start in tryin' out some of the ways of forein' yuh I was talkin' about." Danny shook his head obstinately. "Yuh can flog him black an' blue. I'm writin' nothing." Garrick strolled across to where Ruth was standing and put his arm around her.

"You an' me's gonna have some good times, honey. I don't wanna make yuh feel bad afterwards by seein' young Danny mussed up. He's gonna write out that paper for me —l'll see to that —so can't yuh make him see that he'll jest be collectin' a heap of hard rocks for nothing?" Ruth did not answer. When King embraced her, she did not shrink, but stood stiff with disgust in his arms. Seeing this, one of his sudden mad furies swept over him. "Listen to me, sister!" he snarled at. her. "You're gonna get plenty used to me sometime, so you'd better start in right now. No woman of mine looks that way when I touch her!" Pulling her to him savagely, he kissed her. She did not attempt to resist, which would have been useless in any case. Unresponsive as a stone, she let him kiss her. Danny had gone white. His tortured eyes were staring out of his head, and the veins on his forehead stod up like whipcord. With a sudden oath, Carrick flung the girl away from him. "That's how it is, is it?" he spat at her. "Yuh don't like me so much, huh? Maybe there's somebody else yuh like better —maybe it's that pasty-faced little rat there!" She did not answer. Carrick flung a gross torrent of words at her. He was lashing himself into a fury that hung dangerously on the borderline of insanity . Flinging himself on the helpless Danny, he beat him with his fists, battering his head and face in an orgy of brutality. It was then that Ruth's self-con-trol broke down . "King! Don't! Don't!" She was screaming, trying to wrench away his arms. He flung her aside, then, with a madman's Unpredictable change of mood, turned to stare at her, grinning evilly. She was leaning against the wall where he had hurled Tier, half-fainting.

"I ain't got no call to get het-up over you muggs," he jeered at her. "I'm the boss here still—an' folks like you gotta dance when I tell yuh. I can make yuh do as you're told all right—an' I'm gonna see yuh will."

Danny, dizzy with the rain of blows Carrick had unleashed on him, was finding his brain slowly clearing as the other spoke. In the midst of his misery, one ray of light showed —he was no longer afraid of Carrick.

Strangely enough, that fact, suddenly revealed to him, seemed more important than the complete hopelessness of the situation Ruth and he were in. Somehow or other, during the development of this situation, when his hatred and loathing" for King had been at its height, he had realised that he was no longer quailing at the glare of Carrick's eye: that, in fact, his chief emotion towards the other man was an overwhelming desire to get to grips with him and beat him to his knees.

As the fighting-spirit grew inside Danny, he remembered something Santos had tol dhim. The Mexican had declared that- he would back him, Danny, against Carrick every time — and that he ought to pack a terrific punch in his lean arms. A terrific punch—that gave him the germ of an idea. If he could get the glimpse of a chance to hit Carrick just once, in the right place and with all the power of vicioushess in him behind it ... ' (To be continued>