TIGER

Franklin Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 109, 16 September 1938, Page 2

TIGER

(By STERLING NORTH)

INSTALMENT 27. At breakfast Hie next morning .Joe ,\;iri iiis old, impeccably snioolli self Tgain. "Did you sleep well?'’ lie asked. ••Never better.” Holer said. "ILs great what these long conversations j will do toward pulling u man to sleep.” { •‘l've been tor a little gallop along j Ihe bridle path,” Joe said; "in tact, I .[ have been up since dawn. And now . tire you two ready to give me your , answer?” j "Our answer to what?” Jerry ask- j ed, remembering her talk with Joe | during the night. "Why on the proposition 1 made you both last evening.” Jerry looked at Joe in open-mouth-ed amazement. Was she dreaming, or had she misunderstood him? Hadn’t he promised her that they were safe while they were under his roof? But who could ever predict the caprices of .Toe Middleton? He was like the little poem by Edna Millay which now came to Jerry’s mind : And if I loved you Wednesday, Well, what is that to you? I do not love you Thursday — So much is true. And why you come complaining is more than I can see. I loved you Wednesday—yes—hut what Is that to me? Yes, Joe Middleton was as fickle and as undependable as the “I” running through Edna Millay’s numerous thin volumes. Just before dawn he was sitting on the edge of her bed crying. Now, looking a trifle old and tired, and cynical, he was denying he had ever weakened from his first cruel purpose. “You haven’t forgotten, have you?” Joe asked, lifting his eyebrows while his coffee cup hesitated halfway to his thin lips, poised in slender, nerveless fingers. “You haven’t forgotten the terms, I presume!” “We haven’t forgotten anything,” Peter said. “Of course there can be but one answer,” .Toe said. “I know you are both willing to forget my past, andPeter will leave Chicago quietly and that you, Jerry, will move into the home I have built for you tomorrow — because if you don’t agree ” He pointed out of the window of the pleasant dining room into the flagstone courtyard where half a dozen swarthyfaced men were sitting against a sunny wall with their soft felt hats pulled well down over their eyes. “You’re the world's most infamous liar,” Jerry stormed. “It doesn’t matter what you promise, ten minutes later you have brok&i that promise. What, did you tell me last night after you had broken into my room? What did you say about the fact that while we were under your roof ?” “So you broke into Jerry’s room!” Peter said, rising from the table and throwing down his napkin. “This has ceased to be funny. I’ll break you like a . . .”

Tie took three quick steps and planted a stinging blow on the side of Joe’s jaw. Joe stepped back, smiling evilly, lie pressed a button and the row of gunmen sprang into action. Men appeared from everywhere. __ “Damn you and your rat army,” Peter said. “You haven’t the guts to fight this out man to’man.”

“So you think I haven’t,” Joe sneered. “I’ll make you a sporting proposition. I’ll leave every one of these men here in the courtyard and tight you with pistols, rapeirs, fists or any other weapons you may choose in that clearing down by the lake front.”

“And I’ll lake you up on that proposition so quick it will take your breath away,” Peter said. “The weapons I chose are fists.” “You may be a dozen years younger than I am,” Joe said, “hut I think Jerry will fell you that I am still, in pretty good condition.” “We’ve done enough talking,” Peter said. “Tell your cut-throats to stay in the courtyard and come on . . . Jerry you’ll he referee and both seconds in this fight.” “And everything goes shorl ot murder.” Jerry said. ••Thai's Ihe spirit. Jerry,” Joe Middleton applauded. as Ihey hurried across the velvet lawn toward the clearing near the pier and the boathouse. “We. aren't planning a sparring match.”

(Copyright)

“I hate fights,” Jerry said, panting as she tried to keep up lo the men. "i think they arc brutal and degrading and bestial. But you are a beast, ,100 Middleton and there is only one wav to leach you your lesson.”

The ring was a circle of smooth turf perhaps 200 feet in diameter and surrounded on three sides and part of the fourth by a dense growth of trees. The fourth side was partly lake front where heavy willows screened the view, and the big stone boathouse and pier at which a large speedboat was tied.

There seemed no danger of interruption here as the men, stripped to the waist, squared away for the fight.

Jerry found herself to be trembling uncontrollably from the excitement and anticipation. She prayed that Peter would be as strong as Hercules and would turn out lo be a combination of Jack Sharkey, Jim Londos and a couple of ,iu .jitsu experts. They were a husky pair, however, and Jerry, although she was with Peter to the last breath, could not be certain as they waded into the first engagement which would win.

Peter was the younger and the more ruggedly proportioned, but he was a trifle lighter. Then, too, he had just been through a battle with the jungle which would have killed a weaker man and had taken its toll from him. .Toe, though older, and looking a bit dissipated, was still an agile giant with bugle muscles that rippled as he feinted, side-stepped and lunged. He was brown but not so brown as Peter, who was the brown image of a young Greek god. -

As Joe stepped in with the sharp snappy uppercuts .Terry had seen him use so effectively on Tony Anzetti, Peter crouched like a tackier on the Notre Dame first string waiting to leap.

He dug his toes into the sod and plunged forward like a steam locomotive in a hurry to go somewhere, struck Joe squarely in the solar plexus with his head, and caught the older man in a bear hug that was like a vise.

Joe went over backward, but managed to secure a strangle hold of the variety Strangler Lewis made famous. Ho tightened this torture hold' upon Peter’s neck until Peter broke out in a cold sweat, but a moment later Peter had thrown Joe backward over his shoulder.

They were on their feet again, sparring and waiting for an opening.

Joe liad seemed a professional boxer in comparison to Tony Anzetti, liut in contrast to Anzetti, Peter was himself a boxer of no little ability. He was not so relaxed as Joe, not so trim and neat in the tapping and sparring and feinting, but he was tremendously powerful and one of his blows left red ruin along the side of Joe’s jaw. The light was in Peter’s eyes, almost blinding him at times it came down so fiercely like a great spotlight on this huge prize ring. And the light shone on the rippling back of Joe’s sleek body like light along the gleaming hide of some great cat.

Sometimes Jerry shut her eyes the fight, was so ferocious. But then her courage would come bach and her hatred for Joe would return and she would remeber that he had threatened her children.

Jerry herself would have fought for the children. She felt, in fact, that siie w 7 as fighting.

Her eyes gleamed with the light of battle, and her hair and dress were in disarray.

Every time Joe was hit she exulted and every time Peter was struck by one of .toe’s slashing right hooks or jabs or uppercuts Jerry felt that she herself had been hit.

Site found that siie was crying fierce little cries, and once when Peter was down for a moment and the Tiger had leaped on top of him Jerry found it hard not to go in there herself.

There they were, up again! How could they fight like that and live? One moment they were down striving for a deadlock or a scissors hold, the next they were on their feet slugging and sparring. The Tiger could scarcely cut the lough brown hide of Peter’s face, but doe's skin was more tender. He was looking ghastly. And then, suddenly, Jerry was very sick of it all. She wanted the light to stop and she wanted to get away.

She was not a little panther any more, , just a frightened girl. She found that she was crying. She looked away at the flaming autumn weeds and the blue lake and the i clear sky and wondered why men are j such brutes and why in a beautiful spot like this a man and a girl should have to fight an insatiable beast like Joe to save their very lives. A ruby-throated hummingbird, which should have gone south weeks before, alighted not fifteen feet away from where Jerry was silling and

, preened its feathers with his long bill made l'or extracting the honey from the deepest flowers. Squirrels were gathering nuts unl der the hickory trees, and while she j followed their scampering movements up the trees she saw a wedge of wild geese far above. Then she turned back to Hie fight again. Peter was down. Ilis eyes were terribly open and bis face swollen. Joe was slowly tightening bis strangle bold upon bis throat. (To be Continued).