"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 amusing himself with Potter. Absently now he pressed the button and watched the light, shining behind his closed fingers, turn them a bright, transparent red. He did not realize that Tusk had been keeping a close eye on him until he heard another exclamation of horror. For the instant he partially suspected mischief and wheeled about, but one look at the half-wit dissipated all doubt. He was standing with his mouth open, a picture of abject fear, trying to speak, stammering, and finally staggered to the fence. Brent was really concerned for him, thinking it might be some sort of a fit: but Tusk had turned and, although cringing, was staring back with enchanted eyes. "Devil!" he hoarsely whispered. "You're full of fire! I jest seen you light up like a lightnin'-bug! You're a devil! I know; a devil!" "Oh," Brent, more than ever delighted with this adventure, began to understand, "I see what you mean! Yes, sure 'nough, I'm the devil--the very old boy himself, dressed up this way to fool people. Zip!" He let the torch flash again behind his closed fingers, and again Tusk gasped and trembled as they turned magically aglow. "Shut up," Brent commanded. "You'll scare Tom! And if you tell a soul who I am--well, you can guess what I'll do to you! Now call Tom out, and put it to him strong. I'll stand in the fence here and listen; and if you don't put it to him strong!--" Again the electric torch.