Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/174

 "Nothing doing. I won't have it." Rutherford, by a stroke of strategy, carried the war into the country of the other. "I gave way to you about Dingwell, though I hated to try that Indian stuff on him. He's a white man. I 've always liked him. It's a rotten business."

"What else can you do? We dare n't turn him loose. You don't want to gun him. There is nothing left but to tighten the thumbscrews."

"It won't do any good," protested the big man with a frown. "He's game. He 'll go through. … And if it comes to a showdown, I won't have him starved to death."

Tighe looked at him through half-hooded, cruel eyes. "He 'll weaken. Another day or two will do it. Don't worry about Dingwell."

"There's not a yellow streak in him. You have n't a chance to make him quit." Rutherford took another turn up and down the room diagonally. "I don't like this way of fighting. It's—damnable, man! I won't have any harm come to Dave or to the kid either. I stand pat on that, Jess."

The man with the crutches swallowed hard. His Adam's apple moved up and down like an agitated thermometer. When he spoke it was