Adventure Magazine Cover — page 68: what you’re looking at

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

632. fireman again obeyed. Inside was the tin- type of a girl, barely in her teens, a round- faced lass, with curly hair hanging on her shoulders. “Give it to him!” James Toft cried fiercely. ‘‘Hold it up before his eyes if he won’t take it. Let him look at the picture of his dead girl, that I’ve carried about with me, good days and bad days, for ten years, and wouldn’t part with it for all the gold in the safe back yonder. She cared about me if no one else ever did. Let her speak for me!” The fireman held out the portrait, and the engineer took it mechanically from his hand. As he gazed on the features of his dead child a mist gathered before his eyes, and on the face of the mist moved the shadows of the past. A heavy tear cut the grime on the lined face, and the fireman, a sympathetic man, with children of his own, saw, and swept a blue sleeve across his eyes. Dick snapped the case shut and handed it back to his subordinate. ‘Put it where you found it,” he said. ‘Let him have something good about him for the time he has to live.”’ ‘*‘D’ye mean to say you're goin’ to give me up?” the son cried brokenly. The father made no reply, and the other, searching his face with the half-pitiful, half- defiant look of a trapped animal, saw no softening of the grim lines, no relenting in the steady, steely eyes. Only the knuckles of the hand upon the lever were white with the strength of its grip ‘‘____ you!’ the son cried fiercely, ‘* —— you for an unnatural father! May every curse = The fireman laid a heavy hand upon his mouth, and he groaned and fell silent, dully staring at the squat image of fate perched above him, and counting the rhythmical hammering of the great drivers on the rail- joints as they swept him onward to the scaffold. Vaid THREE miles from the Horseshoe ses Dick thrust into his pocket, pulled ~ Out knife and tobacco, and carefully shredded a _ pipeful, while the fireman watched him, wondering. He filled the old briar which lay on the sill of the cab win- dow, laid the plug and the knife, still open, on Adventure the seat behind him, and looked at his watch. “Thirty-five minutes to make up,” he said, “and we'll have to lose a couple more in the cut.” ‘“‘In the Horseshoe?” the fireman queried. He looked at the shining blade on the seat, then back at the engineer, and the eyes of the two men met in a long, steady stare. ‘In the Horseshoe,’ Dick repeated, rais- ing his voice. ‘“‘There was half a ton of rock on the track last week, and I can’t take no chances with a trainload of pas- sengers. I’ll have to slow her down.” He turned away his face, and the fire- man bent to his shovel again. “The cut ain’t more’n half a mile away,” he said with great distinctness. Dick nodded, shut off steam and, with his hand on the air-lever, thrust head and shoulders out of the window. The fireman leaned across the prostrate figure and picked up the knife. When he replaced it, two newly severed ends of plaited rope lay on the floor. “Lively now!” he said. ‘‘You won’t get another chanct. This is the Horseshoe.” The air hissed like a serpent, and the flyer trembled throughout her length as the shoes closed on the wheels. James Toft shook himself free from the coils, slipped past the fireman, swung around the edge of the cab and was gone. With a well-simulated yell of surprise the fireman beat his fist on Dick’s leg. ‘“‘He’s away!” he cried. ‘“‘He’s escaped!”’ ‘‘Escaped?”’ repeated the engineer, avoid- ing the other’s eyes. ‘Got clean off!” continued the fireman, speaking with great rapidity of utterance. ‘‘He must have worked them ropes loose, and lay there watching his chanct. It come when you slowed, an’ he took it. Slipped past me like a ghost, afore I could ketch him.” “Thank God!” said Dick in his beard. He looked at the rope on the floor, and his gaze dwelt on the severed ends. With a sudden impulse he held out his hand, and the fireman gripped it hard. ““Reckon he may do better for this les- son,” the latter said with a half sob. Then he, too, looked at the tell-tale rope. ‘Guess this ain’t much good to nobody now,” he said, and kicked it out into the darkness. cConmnicoooks C@