At a signal from Josie, Markle and his companion were grabbed from behind. The handcuffs were on the companion in a twinkling but with tiger-like agility and strength Markle slipped from the grasp of the detectives. Without a moment’s delay he sprang to the motorcycle, seized Josie by the collar, pulled her from the saddle and hurled her into the bushes by the wayside. He was in the seat and had the machine started before his would-be captors could catch their breath.
“That’s what I get for trusting those stupid men,” muttered Josie as she picked up her bruised and scratched little body from the blackberry bushes where Markle had so ignominiously thrown her. “Thank God for Auntie!” she devoutly added.
And now began one of the most exciting contests ever beheld. Markle, of course ignorant of216 who the passenger was in the side car and determined to get rid of her at any cost, said:
“Now old woman, I don’t want to kill you, but I will unless you do exactly what I say. When we get a mile further on I am going to stop this infernal machine and you are going to get quietly out. Do you understand?”
The supposed old woman nodded. She began, however, to unbutton the large white cotton gloves confining her muscular hands and unknotted the bonnet ribbon tied under her chin. She moved her shoulders back and forth in the bombazine gown, making sure there was plenty of room to give them free play.
Bob Dulaney had been conceded by his regiment in the A. E. F. to be the best wrestler among them. He had strength and agility and science. He had never had to use his powers handicapped in a woman’s dress and kerchief with a stiff sunbonnet but, in spite of the confining clothes and the powerful build of Markle, he felt quite confident that he could master him. He was conscious of his muscles rippling under his feminine garb and as he drew off his gloves he gloried in the strength of his great hands. Should he wait until Markle stopped the car or217 would it be better to grapple with him immediately? Of course, an immediate grapple would mean the detectives in the temporarily disabled Ford would come to his assistance. The sporting blood in Bob’s veins rebelled at this thought. He did not want any assistance. He preferred to have the fight out single handed. He glanced at Markle. A handsome fellow with a well set head and fine square jaw. His close cropped iron-grey hair gave a touch of dignity to his appearance.
“Such a pity! Such a pity!” Bob thought. “Talent gone wrong, just as little Josie said!” but he patted the handcuffs which Josie had placed in the old lady’s reticule.
“Here’s where you get off!” said Markle, stopping his Indian. “Step lively, old woman! I’ve no time to lose.”
The old woman reached out and grasping Markle around the middle she lifted him from the saddle. For the first time in his eventful career of systematized crime, Felix Markle was taken completely by surprise. Knowing the ups and downs of his profession, he was ever ready for an attack, but this bunchy old woman who had so meekly submitted to being carried off had218 given him a shock. If she was not what she seemed, why had she let him get away from the plain clothes men who might have rendered assistance in the way of ready revolvers and handcuffs. All this flashed through his mind as he struggled in the bear hug of the mysterious female.
Markle was even stronger and more agile than Bob had thought him to be. In spite of the hold he had on him from the back he wriggled around and grappled with his foe. Back and forth they fought each one trying to get the death grip on the other. The bombazine skirt was more of a handicap than Bob had thought it would be. He had not realized before how necessary his legs were in a fight. Strange to say the voluminous skirts also got in Markle’s way and finally managed to trip him up. They rolled in the dirt. With a great wrench Bob managed to pull up the offending skirt and with all the strength and science he could command caught the infuriated Markle in the death-like vise known as the body scissors. In this grip, the opponent is held between the legs of one who has obtained this advantage and by the play of the thigh muscles the breath is slowly squeezed out.
219 As Markle’s head drooped Bob drew the handcuffs from his bedraggled reticule and snapped them on his wrists. With his kerchief, no longer snowy, he bound his ankles together.
“There, poor fellow, I fancy you would have been happier if I had not let up when I did but had squeezed all the breath out of you,” Bob panted.
The chug of the rejuvenated Ford was now heard and, after it, the rumble of the truck. The Ford was breaking the speed limits in its endeavor to come up with the Indian and its side car. Josie was wild with impatience. It was all she could do to keep from slapping the stupid detective who had let their quarry escape.
“It is what I get for trusting them,” she kept on saying to herself. “I could have snapped the handcuffs on myself without using any force. And now, poor Bob Dulaney may be killed or almost worse than killed, Markle escaping and no scoop after all to speak of.”
The fight that had seemed to Bob Dulaney to last hours had in reality only taken a few minutes, only long enough for the gasoline to be put in the tank and the car to be backed out of the miry road, turned around and............