Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 108: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ia Shot 2 ETS mn Ce ek RRO Dy ARTA ASS Ak Oe : i”, ” Le ipt " + SEI Bee + “| PLS 4) : Ah 4 Cte os Be) . 7? wre 106 stick. Here’s the boss now. Stick!” he whispered, and straightened up. “Mr. Dickee!’’ he called. And when the young man came over, ““This boy wants to cap the pipe,” he said, and walked away. Now that he was committed to the work, Red found that he was strangely cool and calm. Mr. Dickee took him to the office, and here he offered to cut the pipe and cap it for five thousand dollars, and though they laughed at him, and argued, he stuck, and so the bargain was finally made. If he failed he was to get nothing. If he succeeded, and lived, he was to receive five thousand dollars; if he died, successful, it was to be paid to his mother. Then after a long letter to the girl, to be sent if he was killed, he started for the tunnel. OUTSIDE he was received in a dead silence. It struck him that these men were attending his funeral, and the thought brought a cold chill. But he set his teeth and went reso- lutely onward. Some one thrust a flask into his hand as he passed, and he arrived at the opening, holding it before him, to find Flanagan and a helper waiting. “T don’t want this stuff,’ he said, and started to throw the flask away, but the Irishman caught his hand and stopped him. ““Kape it, lad, kape it! - A drop of whisky is sometimes worth a lot in a job like this.” Red put it in his pocket. Then, witha last look around on the earth and the blue sky, he followed the two into the tunnel. Dark and dismal and gloomy it was, the shoring timbers looking like the ribs of some long-dead reptile, as he walked along after the other two. He watched them fasten the collar, and set the springs, then Flanagan turned and, sending the other man out, pull- ed a coil of rope from a corner. “There’s the files and the sledge,” he said, you. It may do some good if things go wrong. Do it,” he ordered, and, as Red obeyed, he stuck out a mighty paw, gave a crushing grip, and taking the other end of the rope with him left without another word, ~ Temple stood and watched him out of sight up the tunnel, saw him step into the sunshine two hundred yards away, then turned and stared at the pipe. And as he looked, the desire to be off with this job — i “and now tie the end of this round Adventure grew upon him. As Flanagan said, it was a toss-up with death, and the odds immeas- urably against him, and now, brought face to face with the danger, life looked sweet. Again he glanced up the six-hundred-foot incline wistfully at the light reflected from above. “T am a dirty coward,” he said. “A few days ago, when I thought I was a failure, I would just as soon have died as not. Now, when I have the chance to make a stake, I am scared of the risk. Of course, the chances are I’m going to drown, and drown- ing in crude oil must be a rotten death, but —oh, shucks, it will put Mother on Easy Street, and set Milly free for good. As for myself—well, I should worry. I might as well be dead, anyhow.” With the return of his pessimism he step- ped forward and began to examine the pipe. An eight-inch one it was, up which the oil was rushing, and he felt it and tapped it. He had seen many such above, and as he re- membered, they ran about five-eighths of an inch thick. F ive-eighths of an inch to file through, evenly, around the pipe, then a few blows with the sledge to knock the top part away, the jaws of the cap would close, the flow would be stopped, and five thou- sand dollars would be his; or the jaws would not stem the tide, and he would be drowned like a rat in a hole.. If it didn’t go quite right, well! they would fish him out of the oil, dead, some time.later. For he knew perfectly that the slightest mistake, filing a little thinner in one spot, for example, would let loose a force of oil upon him from which there could be no escape. Not the least possibility. He would be submcie engulfed, anni- hilated. Grimly he picked a ‘le and set to work, trying as much as possible to keep an even cut all around; not to get any one point deeper than another. He realized that should the casing get weak in any place, or a flaw or a blow-hole show up, there would likely be a burst of oil that would over- whelm him. So it was with infinite care that he kept the file-cut even and true, gaging by the light of his electric flash every little cut he made. And soon it began to sink deeper into the iron, an eighth, a quarter, three-eighths, a half-an-inch deep. And then his mouth grew dry, and he swallowed continually, while his hand became nervous and unsteady. 3| (0) <S com or ©) LAL