(eng) Murray Leinster by Out of This World (2011)

Author:Out of This World (2011) [World, Out of This]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER IV

Tough Tactics

NEXT morning Bud Gregory shambled into the room in which Murfree had been placed, his craggy features woebegone. "Well?" Murfree said sourly.

"Mr. Murfree," said Bud Gregory miserably. "Those fellas certainly fooled me. That squinty-eyed fella, he told me they was good fellas. I been makin' out right good, bettin' on him in the dirt-track races. I ain't had to mend a car in a coupla weeks. I been eatin' hawg-meat and drinkin' beer and not botherin' nobody. But he fooled me!"

"Evidently," said Murfree. His head was horribly sore where it had been hit. He was sick with impotent fury.

He knew, now, that his guess in the car had been right. His captors were simply criminals. They could not see beyond that personal benefit any more than Bud Gregory could see beyond his personal aversion to sheriffs, policemen, and regularly scheduled work.

"He told me," mourned Bud Gregory, "that if I'd take that dinkus off his racin' car an' put it on another one, so's it'd work the same, that his frien's'd pay me a hundred dollars an' ten dollars a day for the use of it. But now they brought me up here 'and they say I got to fix cars thataway for all three of 'em, and if I don't, they'll fill me full of lead!"

He looked at Murfree as if for sympathy. But Murfree had none for him. When he'd waked from his unwholesome sleep, the night before, it was because the car had stopped. It had stopped here, and even in the darkness Murfree had known it was high in the mountains.

The air here was thin and cold. There was the feel of mountains all about. There was a stone wall and a locked doorway, and he'd insisted upon an interview and the results were unsatisfying.

This was a hideout, much more elaborately fitted out than was to be expected of a party of bandits, but their equipment did not mean greater intelligence. His desperate argument for the release of Bud Gregory and himself that they might tackle the menace facing all America, had been laughed at. It wasn't believable. He couldn't even tell them what sort of device he wanted Bud Gregory to make for the defense of America. He didn't know.

So his arguments were dismissed as amusingly phony. His captors wanted the getaway cars Bud Gregory could fix up for them. They couldn't imagine Bud Gregory as usually employed on anything else. They laughed at Murfree, dizzy and sick from having been knocked out, and put off until morning the question of what they should do with so ridiculously implausible a government man —or to them—detective.

Murfree glared at Bud Gregory.

"Just what do you think they're going to do to me?" Murfree asked bitterly.

Bud Gregory blinked. He had been so absorbed in his own troubles—actual forced labor under threat of death—that he had not thought about Murfree.

"I dunno," answered Gregory.

"Holdup men!" said Murfree savagely, "Robbers! Thieves! They'll stick up a bank. shoot down anybody who interferes,

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