"I can It get that fellow Griggs out of my mind," muttered Tom. "To think that a splendid fellow like him is working as a laborer! I wonder if he isn't fitted for something better--something that pays better?

Look out, Tom Reade, you old softy, or you'll be doing something foolish, all on account of a primary school girl in New England whom you've never seen, and never will! I wonder--h.e.l.lo!"

As Tom had walked along his head had sunk lower and lower in thought.

His sudden exclamation had been brought forth by the fact that he had b.u.mped violently into another human being.

"Cantch er look out where you're going?" demanded an ugly voice.

"I should have been looking out, my friend," Tom replied amiably. "It was very careless of me. I trust, that I haven't done you serious harm."

"Quit yer sa.s.s!" ordered the other, who was a tall, broad-shouldered and very surly looking fellow of thirty.

"I don't much blame you for being peevish," Reade went on. "Still, I think there has been no serious harm done. Good night, friend."

"No, ye don't!" snarled the other. "Nothing of the slip-away-easy style, like that!"

"Why, what do you want?" I asked Tom, opening his eyes in genuine surprise.

"Ye thick-headed idiot!" rasped the surly stranger. "Ye--"

From that the stranger launched into a strain of abuse that staggered the young engineer.

"Say no more," begged Reade generously. "I accept your apology, just as you've phrased it."

"Apology, ye fool!" growled the stranger.

"That won't do. Put up your hands!"

"Why?"

"So ye can fight, ye--"

"Fight?" echoed Tom, with a shake of his bead. "On a hot night like this? No, sir! I refuse."

Tom would have pa.s.sed peaceably on his way, but the stranger suddenly let go a terrific right-hander. Had Tom Reade received the blow he would have gone to the ground. But the young engineer's athletic training stood by him. He slid out, easily and gracefully, but was compelled to wheel and face his a.s.sailant.

"Don't," urged Tom. "It's too hot."

"I'm hot myself," leered the stranger, dancing nearer.

"You look it," Tom admitted. "If you don't stop dancing, you'll soon be hotter. It makes me warm to look at you."

"Stop this one, ye tin-horn!" snarled the stranger.

"Certainly," agreed Tom, blocking the blow. "However, I wish you wouldn't be so strenuous. One of us may get hurt."

This last escaped Reade as he blocked the blow, and again displayed a neat little bit of footwork.

"Let's see you stop this one!" taunted the bully.

"Certainly," agreed Tom, and did so.

"And this one. And this! Here's another!"

By this time the blows were raining in fast and thick. Tom's agile footwork kept him out of reach of the hard, hammer-like fists of the stranger.

Tom had been bred in athletics. He was comparative master of boxing, but before this interchange of blows had gone far the young engineer realized that he had met a doughty opponent.

What Tom didn't know was that his present foe was an ex-prizefighter, who had sunk low in the scale of life.

What the lad didn't even suspect was that the man had been hired to pick a fight with him, and that the fight was for desperate stakes.

"Have you pounded me all you think necessary?" asked Tom coolly, after more than a minute's hard interchange of blows in which neither man had gained any notable advantage.

"No, ye slant-eared b.o.o.b!" roared the a.s.sailant. "Ye--"

Here he launched into another stream of abuse.

"You said all that before," remarked Tom, with a new flash in his eyes.

Then fully aroused, he went to work in earnest, intending to drive his opponent back and down him.

The fighting became terrific. There was little effort now to parry, for each fighter had become intent on bringing the other to earth.

Tom was soon panting as he fought, for his opponent was heavier, taller and altogether out of the youth's fistic cla.s.s.

"If I can only reach his wind once, and topple him over!" thought Reade.

A blow aimed at his jaw he failed to block. The impact sent the young engineer half staggering. Another blow, and Tom dropped, knocked out.

At that very instant a street door near by opened noiselessly.

"I've got him," leered the bully, bending over the senseless form of Tom Reade.

"Bring him in!" ordered a voice behind the open doorway.

CHAPTER XIII. TOM HEARS THE PROGRAM

Throwing his arms around Tom, the bully lifted him and bore him inside, dropping him on the floor in the dark.

"He's some tough fighter," muttered Tom's a.s.sailant. "I didn't know but he'd get me."

"No; he couldn't," replied the other voice. "I was just opening the door so I could slip out and give him a clip in the dark."

"He's coming to," muttered the bully. "Ye'll have to tell me what you want done with him."

The speaker had knelt by Tom, with a hand roughly laid against the young engineer's pulse. Neither plotter could see the boy, for no light had been struck in the room.