Dorothy Dixon Wins Her Wings

"No, I'm not-but-"

"Please," she begged, changing her tone. "My face itches terribly from all that dust and I-"

"Well, what do yer think I am? A lady's maid?"

"Don't be silly-I just hate to sit here talking to you, looking such a fright!"

"So that's it," he laughed. "Don't try yer Blarney on me! I'm as ugly as mud and yer knows it. Though I'll say yer need a little make-up-and I'll let yer have it. But just get rid of that idea that you've got me buffaloed-yer haven't!"

He pushed back his chair and coming round the table, untied the rope that bound her wrists.

"Thanks." She began to rub her hands, which were numbed and sore.

"Don't mention it," he leered. "Now yer can doll up to yer heart's content while I shovel some more chow into me. I sure am empty an' that's no lie!"

"Hey, Mike!" called a man's voice from the doorway behind her. "Where do they keep the wheelbarrer in this godforsakin' dump?"

"In the shed out back," returned Mike, sliding his chair up to the table again and picking up his knife. "What yer want it for? What's the trouble?"

"Trouble enough!" grumbled the other. "There's a couple o' guys messed up pretty bad down the line. Need somethin' to cart 'em up here in. Sling me a hunk o' bread, will yer? I ain't had no chow."

"Tough luck!" Mike replied callously, his mouth full, and tossed him half a loaf. "So long."

"So long-" sang out the other, and Dorothy heard him cross the porch and thump down the steps.

She was busily engaged in flexing her stiff fingers. She began to feel better, stronger, quite like her old self again. But the news that two men were badly hurt was anything but comforting. Was Bill one of them? she wondered.

With an effort, she thrust the thought from her, and drawing forth a comb and a compact from a pocket, she commenced the complicated process of making herself presentable. If she was to make her escape before the rest of the gang arrived she must work fast. But not too fast, for every second brought back renewed strength to her cramped arms and fingers.

"How's that?" she asked a few minutes later, replacing comb and compact in her pocket and getting to her feet.

"Say! You're some looker! I'd never have thought it!"

Mike pushed back his chair and came toward her, wiping his mouth with the back of a hand. "Say! You've got Sadie lashed to the silo!"

"Who's Sadie? Your steady?" she asked, playfully pointing a forefinger at him.

Mike leaned back against the table. "Never mind Sadie," he retorted. "I've got an idea."

"Spill it."

"You wanta breeze-get outa here, don't yer?"

"What a mind-reader!"

"Cut it, kid!" Mike's tone was tense with earnestness. "That guy you been travelin' with is either dead or a cripple. Sposin' you pal up with me. Tell me yer will, kid, and we'll hop it together, now."

"How about the rest of the gang?"

"What about 'em. I ain't a regular-just horned in on this deal to make a coupla grand extra."

"But I'm expensive-" she laughed.

"I'll say you are! What of it? I make good money. I'm no lousy crook. I've got a real profession."

"What is it?"

"I'm a wrestler, kid, and I ain't no slouch at it, either."

For a moment Dorothy paled. For some reason she seemed taken aback.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

Dorothy straightened her lithe figure.

"Not a thing," she shrugged. Then musingly, "So you're a wrestler, eh?"

"Sure-what did yer think I was-a gigolo?"

Dorothy giggled. "Know this hold?" she asked casually.

And then a startling thing occurred-especially startling to the unsuspecting Mike. There was a flash of brown-sweatered arms, a swirl of darker brown hair and Mike felt himself gripped by one elbow and the side of his neck. He knew the hold, had practiced it in gymnasium, but not for some years. To be seized violently thus aroused the man and it brought an instinctive muscular reaction which was assisted by a stab of pain as Dorothy's thumb sank upon the nerve which is called the "funny bone."

Yes, Mike knew the hold, and how to break it and recover; so as Dorothy swirled him backward onto the table with uncanny strength, he pivoted. Then, clutching her under her arms, he clasped his hands just beneath her shoulder blades, bearing downward with his head against her chest. It was a back-breaking grip, but her slender form twisted in his arms as though he had been trying to hold a revolving shaft. An arm slipped over his shoulder, a hand fastened on his wrist and began to tug it slowly upward with the deliberate strength of a low-geared safe hoist. Then the other hand, stealing around him, encircled the middle finger of his clasped hand and began to force it back-a jiu jitsu trick. If he resisted, the finger would be broken. To release his clasp would mean a probable dislocation of the other arm.

Mike realized that he had to do not only with a phenomenally strong girl, but with a skilled and practiced exponent of Oriental wrestling tricks. He was by no means ignorant of this school, and countered the attack in the proper technical way-with utter relaxation for the moment-a supple yielding, followed by a swift offensive. Though he was broader of shoulder and heavier, the two were nearly of equal height, possibly of equal strength, but of a different sort. Mike's was slower, but enduring; Dorothy's more that of the panther-swift, high of innervation, but incapable of sustained tension.

Such maneuvers as immediately followed in this curious combat were startling. Mike felt that he was struggling with an opponent far more skilled than himself in jiu jitsu, one trained to the last degree in the scientific application of the levers and fulcrums by which minimum force might achieve maximum results in the straining of ligaments and paralysis of muscles.

And to give him his due, for all his bluff about striking her with the gun on the way up to the house, Mike had some decent instincts beneath his roughness. Whereas he was striving to overcome without permanently injuring the girl, Dorothy had no such qualms. She was fighting with deliberate intention of putting him out of the running, for at least such time as would permit her to carry out her plans for escape.

But for a time Mike's efforts were purely defensive, his object to save himself from disgraceful defeat. What would the gang say if she bested him, a professional wrestler, and make her getaway?

They fell across the table, shattering the crockery, then pitched off on to the floor with Mike underneath.

He writhed over on his face and offered an opening for an elbow twist which was not neglected. There was an instant when he thought the joint would go; but he broke the hold by a headspin at the cost of infinite pain.

Mike had seen the state in which jiu jitsu wrestlers left their vanquished adversaries. Defeat at this girl's hands would probably leave him helpless and crippled for three or four hours. It was not a pleasant thought. He would have to hurt her-hurt her badly, if he could.

He was flat on his face again when suddenly he felt his automatic jerked from its holster and she sprang to her feet.

"If you move an eyelash," said Dorothy, rather breathlessly, "I'll pull the trigger!"

"If you don't drop that rod at once, I'll blow the top of your head off," declared a dispassionate voice from the doorway.

Dorothy dropped the gun.

Chapter XIV