Dolph's tone changed from one of entreaty to one of dire threats.

He would spend the rest of his life, he declared, in dogging Reade's tracks until he succeeded in killing the boy.
"That doesn't worry me any.

You'll experience a change of heart---see if you don't," Tom rejoined grimly, as he added to the pounding that the other was receiving.
Harry Hazelton had struggled to his feet, though he had been unable to free his hands from the cords that held them behind his back.
"You're not talking quite the way you did a few minutes ago, Gage," Harry put in dryly.
"You'll see---both of you young pups!" moaned the battered wretch.
"Ask any one, and they'll tell you that Dolph Gage never overlooks a pounding such as I've had." "And you got it from the boy that you were going to teach something," jeered Hazelton, "Gage, you know a little more about Tom Reade, now, don't your ?" Then Harry straightened up, as he caught sight of moving objects in the distance.
"Get through with him, Tom" advised the other young engineer.
"I see Eb and Josh coming on the run.

They'll have the guns.
We've got to look out for ourselves." Tom flung the badly beaten man from him where he lay on the ground moaning over his hurts and vowing vengeance on Tom.
"Stand still, Harry, and I'll have you free in a jiffy," Tom proposed, hauling out his pocket knife.
"It won't do for us to stand still too long," urged Hazelton, as his chum began to slash at the cords.

"The other scoundrels will kill us when they see what's been going on here." "No, they won't," Tom promised calmly.