Get up!"

"That don't sound like good sense to me," Tusk whined. "Say, how'd you
do that, anyhow? I've knocked a lot with fellers, but--"

There was a spirit of forgiveness in the voice, a whisper of
reconciliation, but Brent wanted his victory to be absolute. He appeared
to go into a towering rage, screwing his face into a distorted horror,
stamping about like a demon, and disfiguring himself as much as
possible--trying, Chinese fashion, the experiment of terrifying the
enemy into abject submission, and having a great deal of fun throughout.

Growing more and more superstitious about this mysteriously delivered
blow from a man of smaller stature, and his apparent confidence to do it
again any number of times, Tusk remained in a sitting position and
stared. He became gradually impressed with a feeling that here was his
master, and the more Brent raved the more he cringed. At last he whined:

"I don't want no moh!"

"Will you come back with me and tell Tom Hewlet what I say?"

"Yep."

"And make him believe it?"

"He's durn sure to believe it when I tell 'im 'bout this heah!"

"All right; get up. You and I can be good friends, or damn bad ones,
whichever you please; and it all depends on how you act tonight. Come
on, before he goes to bed!"

As they proceeded toward Tom's house, but a few hundred yards away,
Brent, still laughing under his breath, continued:

"You rub it in well, d'you hear? Tell him the Colonel, Mr. Dulany and I
will give the sheriff papers that'll send him to the pen. D'you know how
long people have to serve for blackmail? A hundred years; sometimes
twice as long! And they can't get pardoned, either, but just break rocks
every day, Sundays and Christmases, with their teeth."

"With yoh teeth!" Tusk cried.

"Of course, with your teeth," Brent chuckled. "Ain't your hands cut off?
And sometimes they feed the rocks to you hot, and you never get any
water--when you go up for blackmail! It takes--oh, I should say, about
fifty years for a man to go sort of crazy and begin to yell; but I
showed the keepers how to stop that. Now, they put fish hooks in your
tongue, and tie you up--"

"Great Gawd A'mighty!" Tusk screamed, springing away from him. "Don't
tell me no moh--it's plumb wicked!"

"I haven't begun to tell you half, yet!"

"Naw, naw. Mister Whatever-yoh-name-is, I won't listen to no moh!"

Brent carried a small electric torch, and this happened to be in his
hand while he was thus amu