But the blow had roused every ounce of fight there was in Conny Degger.

He bounded across the road and swung his right hand high above his head.

Just in time Ralph saw there was a stone in it.

He dodged, and the missile sailed over the roadside fence.

"Good!" shouted Ralph, and, leaping into the fray, struck again and again. "I don't-much care-how you fight-as long-as you-do fight!"

Each punctuation was a punch delivered. A dozen healthy blows landed about Degger's head. He was already groggy. He began to yell for Burtwell to help.

"Get something! Out of the tool box! Knock him out!" he shouted.

Ralph had not overlooked the possibility of Burtwell's coming into the fight from that angle. The man had scrambled to his feet and was doing exactly what Degger begged him to do. He was rummaging in the tool box.

At this moment Degger received a terrific blow on the jaw. He sank under it, and his eyes rolled up.

Ralph caught him before he could fall, wheeled with him in his arms and heaved him up just as Burtwell started with a heavy wrench in his hand for the common enemy.

"Didn't I tell you to keep out of this?" Ralph panted, and with a great heave of his shoulders flung the almost senseless Degger into Burtwell's face.

The two went down together, and neither immediately tried to rise.

Ralph went to his car, looked back over his shoulder, and with a flash of teeth and a bitter grin demanded:

"Got enough? You, Degger, know what this is for. If you don't put a bridle on your tongue after this, better put many a mile between us.

For if I come after you again I won't let you off so easy."

He got into the car, started it, backed it around, and shot up the road on the return journey to Clinkerport before his two victims were on their feet.

Ralph was not entirely unmarred. When he had backed his roadster into the stable behind the bungalow that served the Endicotts for a garage, he went into the washroom and bathed his bruises and the cut above his right eye.

There was room in the stable for his small car and the family automobile. The remainder of the floor s.p.a.ce had been turned into a laboratory and workshop by Professor Endicott.

The latter caught sight of his nephew before he could plaster up the cut. He opened the door of the washroom, and, standing there, a tall, sapling-like figure in his white smock, stared rather grimly at Ralph.

"Another smash-up?" he asked.

"No, sir. The car isn't hurt. Just a little trouble with a fellow."

"With whom, may I ask?"

"That Degger." For Ralph was nothing if not perfectly frank.

A smile wreathed Professor Endicott's lips. He was an austerely handsome man with abundant hair which was gray only at the temples, and a smoothly shaven face. His eyes saw all there was to be seen through amber-tinted gla.s.ses.

That he kept much to himself, seemed not fond of society, and was wholly wrapped up in his experiments, made Professor Endicott seem less human than he really was. His sense of humor was by no means blunted.

"So you finally awoke to the presence of the worm in the apple?" he suggested.

"Degger has a dirty mouth. I had to stop it," muttered Ralph.

"It went as far as that?"

"Say! how am I going to tell Lorna who she shall, or shall not, a.s.sociate with?"

"You should have a right to."

"Let me tell you, Uncle Henry, Lorna is not a girl to be bidden in any matter. No man will ever dominate her."

"You used to," said the professor, with a sudden smile.

"Yes. When we were kids. But no more. Believe me, Lorna is a young woman who knows her own mind and means to have her own way."

"Even with the man she marries?"

"She has no intention of marrying me."

"Don't you mean, Ralph, that the lack of intention is on your side?"

said the professor, his brow bent sternly. "The fault lies at your door, young man. There has been a well understood arrangement for years--"

"Between the families-yes," interrupted Ralph. "But Lorna and I never agreed.'

"How can you talk so childishly?" said Professor Endicott in much the same tone Miss Ida Nicholet used with Lorna. "It is too late to hedge now, Ralph. Be a man. Fulfil your family obligations. If the girl seems indifferent it is because you have not been sufficiently loverlike. Can't you see?"

"I see well enough; but you do not," his nephew returned bluntly. "I am quite sure Lorna cares nothing for me in that way. And I am not at all sure that I wish to marry her."

"Yet you interfere with this Degger--"

"If she was my sister I'd do that. He is a scurrilous scoundrel."

"Of course," was Professor Endicott's thoughtful comment. "I presume Lorna will attract plenty of such fortune hunters until you and she let it be publicly announced that you are engaged."

Ralph's expression changed. He wagged his head in a regretful negative.

"No, uncle, I think not. Degger, even, was bound to learn in time that the Nicholets are not as well off as they are counted."

"What? What's that?" demanded the professor, startled.

"Haven't you heard anything about it?"

"That the Nicholets have lost money?"

"_All_ of their money. So I understand. I bet Lorna's father has been speculating-and with her money and Miss Ida's as well as his own."

"Great heavens, Ralph! this is not a joke, is it?" gasped his uncle.

"I don't see anything to joke about in the loss of one's fortune.

Either it is so, or it is not so."