CHAPTER XV

DECISIVE ACTION

It was impossible that such a story should be wafted about the community without reaching Ralph Endicott's ears. Lorna might never hear it, but Ralph's association with the longshore folk was much closer than that of most of the dwellers on Clay Head.

In spite of the Endicott pride and a large measure of dignity for so young a man--which Lorna sometimes scoffed at--Ralph was not considered at all "stuck up" by the natives. He was quite at home on fishing smack or clam flat. He could hold his own in any work or rough sport with the younger men of Clinkerport. And, in addition, he could be depended on at any time to lend a hand.

For this very trait of which fellows of Degger's kidney had taken advantage at college, Clinkerport folk respected him. And the individual who brought to Ralph the unkind gossip that the mail carrier had repeated to Tobias o' the Light, thought he was doing Ralph a favor.

"'Course, we don't b'lieve nothing like that of you and Miss Nicholet," the gossip-laden tongue concluded. "And Amos Pickering says that Tobias Bassett says that you an' the gal was back at the Light from Lower Trillion an hour after Degger got back.

"But you know how such stories spread. The truth's a cripple while a lie wears the seven-leagued boots! An' this Degger does say that you had trouble over another gal up there where you went to college----"

"Where is Degger keeping himself?" demanded Ralph, breaking into his informant's story at this point.

"Why, he an' Lon Burtwell air around together a good deal. You know Burtwell? He's some kind of a promoter--or suthin'. I dunno but he's buyin' up cranberry bogs. There's his car standin' over yon'. He and Degger rides around together a good deal."

Ralph waited, his face rather blue looking, his eyes smoldering. After a time he saw Conway Degger come out of the hotel. He was with a dark, sleek-looking man.

They got into the touring car, the dark man, whom Ralph knew to be Lon Burtwell, settling himself behind the steering wheel. Ralph stepped into his own drab roadster.

The other car passed him, heading out of town on the road to Harbor Bar. Ralph pushed the starter. Then he let in his clutch. The roadster wheeled into the wake of the bigger car. Both left town at an easy pace.

Whether Degger looked back and saw that they were followed and by whom, or for some other reason, as soon as they were clear of the town the bigger car's speed was increased. It whirled away in a cloud of dust, and the roar of its muffler could have been heard for miles.

Ralph stepped on his accelerator and the low-hung roadster darted up the road as though shot out of a gun. There was no county constable by the way to time either of the cars.

The start Burtwell's car had gained in the beginning kept it well ahead for the first ten or twelve miles. The smaller car, however, was of racing model, and Ralph was a speed demon. He finally forced the nose of his machine almost under the rear axle of Burtwell's motor car and hung there with bulldog persistence.

Degger knew the pursuer was there, as was shown by his climbing upon the seat and looking over the crushed-back hood of the car. He motioned Ralph away. If the bigger car had to slow down there might be a collision.

But Endicott knew exactly what he was about. He wanted to worry the driver of the big automobile. His was the speedier machine of the two, and he knew how to handle it to a hair. As Burtwell slowed down, Ralph shut off speed accordingly. The road was narrow here, and he waited for a wider stretch of it before proceeding with a plan he had.

"Get back!" yelled Conny Degger, gesticulating with his hand.

Grimly Endicott held to his course. Burtwell slowed still more. They came to the wider piece of road for which Ralph had been waiting.

He pulled out from behind Burtwell's car and went past like the wind. There was less than a mile on which to maneuver, and it was a lonely piece of road.

For twenty seconds the roadster dashed ahead with a thuttering roar of its exhaust. Then Ralph shut off, applied the brakes cautiously and, just as he was stopping, turned the car squarely to block the road.

Burtwell's horn emitted a scared squawk. He came to a stop with clashing gears and Burtwell himself spouting profanity.

"What do you mean, you crazy fool?" he bawled, hopping out from behind the wheel when his car had stopped with its radiator almost touching the mudguard of Ralph's roadster.

"I have no business with you, Burtwell," Ralph replied, carelessly tossing his gloves and the cap and mask into his driving seat as he stepped from his own car. "My business is with Degger."

"What kind of a hold-up is this, anyway?" demanded Burtwell blusteringly. "Do you want to talk to this fellow, Conny?"

"I haven't got a bit of use for him," declared Degger, remaining in the seat.

Ralph's smile was grim enough.

"I've only one use for you, Degger," he said. "I'm going to mop up a part of this road with you. Get out and take your medicine."

"What's this?" snapped Burtwell. "You ruffian! Get your car out of my way and let us pass, or I'll show you something altogether new."

"Keep out of this, Burtwell," advised Ralph quietly, yet never losing sight of the promoter. "I am going to give Degger the thrashing of his young sweet life."

"What for?" demanded Burtwell.

"He knows. Perhaps it is because I don't like the color of his tie--or the cut of his coat--or that hat he wears. In any case, it is going to be just as good a thrashing as though I had the best reason in the world----

"Ah! Would you?"

Burtwell's hand had gone to his hip and he started to draw something from his pocket. Ralph stooped, leaped forward, and drove his right shoulder into the fellow's midriff as he wound his long arms tightly about his waist. Endicott had not played tackle on the scrub team for nothing!

The breath was driven out of Burtwell with an explosive grunt. Ralph wrenched the weapon from his hand, stood up, and threw the fellow full length in the dust.

"That will be about all for _you_," he said sharply. "A pretty little automatic." He tossed the weapon over the nearest fence. "Now, Degger, get out of that car. Or are you packing some such plaything as your partner?"

He leaped to the side of the automobile and seized Degger by the shoulders. The fellow screamed as Ralph dragged him out over the door.

"Put up your fists, Degger," commanded Ralph, setting him staggeringly on his feet in the road. "Defend yourself! Whether you fight, or don't fight, I am going to do my best to change your face if I can't your morals."

"You brute!" bawled Degger, growing white.

"That won't save you," Ralph declared, and struck a blow that, landing upon Degger's forehead, knocked him clear across the road.

"Get up and take it!" exclaimed Ralph fiercely. "Or shall I come after you?"

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 space 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 glasses.

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, associate 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."

"John Nicholet is visionary. He was at me not long ago to join in one of his financial schemes. I could not be bothered. Besides, I told him plainly I needed all my ready cash for these experiments I am making.

"I--I--Ralph! If this is _true_--if our neighbors have sustained severe losses--surely you would not break off with Lorna because of that? What if she has no dowry?"

"Uncle Henry!"

"Of course not," said the professor hurriedly. "We have plenty of money, Ralph. There will be enough for you and Lorna. The little girl never need feel the pinch of poverty."

"But suppose she will not have me in any case?" cried the younger man. "I can't carry her off to the minister's and marry her, willy-nilly."

"Pooh! Pooh! Cave-man tactics are quite out of date. You are a most unromantic chap, Ralph. Why don't you try to make the girl like you? And surely she _must_ marry somebody with money. It would be a calamity if she secured a penniless fellow like that Degger.

"It is your duty, Ralph, to fulfil the plans made by the two families for your welfare and the girl's. Under the disturbing circumstances you speak of, it is all the more important that you and Lorna come to a prompt understanding. Suppose they--Miss Ida, for instance--should believe for a moment that because of their misfortune we were--er--unwilling to have the engagement announced? Why, Ralph, the Endicott name would be forever disgraced!"

"Huh!"

"If Lorna's fortune has been unwisely invested by her father--and Miss Ida's money, too--something must be done about it! Something certainly must be done!"