"She will."

Buddy gasped. "You _sure?_"

"I'm quite sure she would if you asked her. But I don't want you to ask her." When an expression of pained reproach leaped into the lad's face, the speaker explained, quickly: "Don't think for a moment that I care for her, nor that she has the slightest interest in me. It is you that I care for. What you just said pleased me, touched me. I wish you could understand how much I really do care for you, Buddy. Won't you wait--a few days, before you--"

"I _can't_ wait."

"You must."

The men eyed each other steadily for a moment, then Buddy demanded, querulously, "What have you got against her, anyhow?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"She told me everything there is to tell an' I told you. I don't care what she's done--if she ever done anything. She's had a hard time."

"Will you wait forty-eight hours?"

"No."

"Twenty-four?"

"Gimme that ring!" When Gray made no move the speaker ran on, excitedly: "I'm a man. I'm of age. It's none of your business what I do--nor Pa's or Ma's, either. It won't do no good for them to come."

Gray went to the door, locked it and pocketed the key. "Buddy"--his voice was firm, his face was set--"you are a man, yes, although you were only a boy a few weeks ago. You are going to act like a man, now."

"You goin' to try an' _hold_ me here?" The inquiry was one of mingled astonishment and anger, for young Briskow could scarcely believe his eyes. "Don't do that, Mr. Gray. I--n.o.body can't _make_ me do anything.

Please don't! That's plumb foolish."

"What if I told you that Miss Montague is--"

Buddy interrupted with a harsh cry. "d.a.m.n it! I said I wouldn't listen to anything against her. I'm tellin' you, again, keep your mouth shut about her." The youth's face was purple; he was trembling; his fists were clenched, and with difficulty he restrained even a wilder outburst. "You can have the ring, but--you lemme out of here, quick."

When this command went unheeded he strode toward the bedroom, intending to use the other exit, but his caller intercepted him. "Lemme out!" the young man shouted.

"One of us is going to remain in this room, and I think it will be you." As Gray spoke he jerked off his coat and flung it aside. "Better strip, Buddy, if you mean to try it."

Buddy recoiled a step. Incredulously he exclaimed: "You--you wouldn't try _that_! This is my room. You must be crazy."

"I think I am, indeed, to endure what I have endured these last two days; to make myself ridiculous; to be humiliated; to risk my business ruin just to save a young fool from his folly." Impatience, resentment, anger were in the speaker's tone.

"I never ast you. You b.u.t.ted in--tried to cut me out. That's dirty. You was lyin' when you said--"

"Have it that way. I've run out of patience."

Ozark Briskow, too, had reached the limit of his endurance; he exploded. Momentarily he lost his head and cursed Gray vilely. For answer the latter moved close and slapped him across the mouth, saying: "Fight, you idiot!"

Buddy's low, gasping cry had the effect of a roar; it left the room echoing, then savagely he lunged at his a.s.sailant. He was blind, in him was a sudden maniacal impulse to destroy; he had no thought of consequences. Gray knocked him down.

It was a blow that would have felled an ox. As the youth lay half dazed, he heard the other taunting him, mocking him. "Get up, you lummox, and defend yourself. You'll be a man when I get through with you."

Codes of combat are peculiar to localities. In the north woods, for instance, lumberjacks fight with fist and heel; in the Southwest, when a man is mad enough to fight at all, he is usually mad enough to kill.

As Buddy Briskow rose to his knees he groped for the nearest weapon, the nearest missile, something--anything with which to slay. His hand fell upon a heavy metal vase, and with this he struck wickedly as Gray closed with him. This time they went down together and rolled across the floor. The legs of a desk crashed and a litter of writing materials was spilled over them.

Gray was the first to regain his feet, but his shirt had been torn half off and he tasted blood upon his lips. He had met strong men in his time, but never had he felt such a rocklike ma.s.s of bone and muscle as now. Buddy was like a kicking horse; his fists were as hard as hoofs, and that which they smote they crushed or bruised or lacerated. He possessed now the supreme strength of a madman, and he was quite insensible to pain. He was uttering strange animal sounds.

"Shut up!" Gray panted. "Have the guts to--keep still. You'll--rouse the--"

He dodged an awkward swinging blow from the giant and sent him reeling.

Buddy fetched up against the solid wall with a crash, for Gray had centered every pound of his weight behind his punch, but the countryman rebounded like a thing of rubber and again they clinched.

A room cluttered with heavy furniture is not like a boxing ring. In spite of Gray's skill and an agility uncommon in a man of his size, it was impossible to stop the other's rushes or to avoid them. Straining with each other they ricocheted against tables and chairs, and only the fact that much of the furniture was padded, and the floor thickly carpeted, prevented the sound of their struggle from alarming the occupants of the halls and the lobby. They fought furiously, moving the while like two wrestlers trying for flying holds; time and again they fell with first one on top and then the other; their flesh suffered and they grew b.l.o.o.d.y. The room soon became a litter, for its fittings were upset, flung about, splintered, as if the room itself had been picked up and shaken like a doll's house.

Gray managed to floor his antagonist whenever he had time and s.p.a.ce in which to set himself, but this was not often, for Buddy closed with him at every opportunity. At such times it was the elder man who suffered most.

In a way it was an unequal struggle, for youth, ablaze with a holy fire, was matched against age, stiffened only by stubborn determination. Neither man longer had any compunctions; each fought with a ferocious singleness of purpose.

Buddy's face had been hammered to a pulp, but Gray was groaning; he could breathe only from the top of his lungs, and the bones of his left hand had been telescoped. Agonizing pains ran clear to his shoulder, and the hand itself was well-nigh useless.

It was an extraordinary combat; certainly the walls of this luxurious suite had never looked down upon a scene so strange as this fight between friends. How long it continued, neither man knew--not a great while, surely, measured by the clock; but an interminable time as they gauged it. Nor could Calvin Gray afterward recall just how it came to an end. He vaguely remembered Buddy Briskow weaving loosely, rocking forward upon uncertain legs, blindly groping for him--the memory was like that of a figure seen dimly through a mist of dreams--then he remembered calling up his last reserve of failing vigor. Even as he launched the blow he knew it was a knockout. The colossus fell, lay motionless.

It was a moment or two before Gray could summon strength to lend succor, then he righted an armchair and dragged Buddy into it. He reeled as he made for the bathroom, for he was desperately sick; as he wet a towel, meanwhile clinging dizzily to the faucet, his reflection leered forth from the mirror--a battered, repulsive countenance, shockingly unlike his own.

He was gently mopping young Briskow's face when the latter revived.

Buddy's eyes were wild, he did not recognize this unpleasant stranger until a familiar voice issued from the shapeless lips.

"You'll be all right in a few minutes, my lad."

Briskow lifted his head; he tried to rise, but fell back limply, for as yet his body refused to obey his will.

"You--licked me," he declared, faintly. "Licked me good, didn't you?"

"_Buddy!_ Oh, Buddy--" It was a yearning cry; Gray's streaked, swollen features were grotesquely contorted. "You won't be mad with me, will you?"

"Want to fight any more?"

The victor groaned. "My G.o.d, _no!_ You nearly killed me."

This time Buddy managed to gain his feet. "Then I reckon I'll--go to bed. I feel purty rotten."

Gray laughed aloud, in his deep relief. "Righto! And after I've phoned for a doctor, if you don't mind, I'll crawl in with you."

CHAPTER XXII

On the morning after the fight Mallow knocked at Gray's door, then in answer to an indistinct and irritable command to be gone, he made himself known.

"It's me, Governor. And I've got Exhibit A."