Adventure Magazine Cover — page 109: what you’re looking at

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

The Killing of Tom McCray | slab had flopped to the roller-bed after the cut by the circular and been snatched off into the conveyor by him than the carriage retreated, the log was turned by the steam- - nigger, and the powerful twin engines drove the carriage forward again at tremendous speed, leaving another slab with which to wrestle. Sometimes, before the first slab was removed, a second came nosing along the live-rollers, fouling it. Often they got crosswise. Jerking, clawing with both hands and pick, doggedly he persevered. As the day wore on his wrenched arm pained him without ceasi The muscles throughout his body, stiff and sore from the unaccustomed toil, clamored for rest. In the palm of his right hand, an open cut from a piece of bark burned with the salt of his sweat. His nerves torn to a frazzled edge, it seemed as if the sharp whine of the saws and the clank of the machinery were splin- ters driven into his brain. The men began to watch him, knowing grins stamped upon their faces; for, im their vernacular, the “old bear’ was about to get him—an incident always treated as a huge joke. From the log-deck, Trueman waved and smiled encouragingly. Once or twice, when the sloping ramp that fed the car- riage with fresh logs was full, he ran down and, thrusting Willis aside, took his place for a spell. Neb Horton, the sawyer, a large-framed, bony man with small blue eyes, grinned tantalizingly as he tried to “smother” Wil- lis; and at last, when it seemed inevitable that the boy’s trembling knees would buckle beneath him, when his eyes were dimmed with the tears of exhaustion and mortifica- tion, he began to be filled with a rage against the man who was persistently giving him just a little more than he could do. A light slab, jerked too soon from the roller-bed, struck him sharply on the leg, and this trivial incident was the straw that snapped his self-control. With a cry, he dropped his pick, caught up the slab and rushed upon his tormentor. you!” he shouted; and he brought the slab down across the sawyer’s shoulder. The grin never leaving his face, Horton released the knob of his lever for a moment, swept back his arm, and the big open palm of his gloved hand struck Willis heavily on the side of the head. Reeling from the blow, Willis’ heel caught on something and he fell sprawling on his 107 back on a solid floor of boards upon a low conveyor which, moving slowly, carried them sideways against trim-saws at either side that cut them to uniform length. He was not stunned; but he lay inert up- on his back, his legs, from the knees down, dangling over the end of a wide plank. Un- conscious of the plank’s slow progress along the conveyor, he relaxed his tortured mus- cles; and he was only vaguely aware of shouts above the sound of the machinery, of a sudden cessation in the rumbling of the carriage. ‘Then he was seized by the heels and jerked with a thump to the floor. Scrambling to his feet, he found himself looking into the face of a giant negro who, his dark skin turned a peculiar gray, his eyes rolling whitely, was gibbering unin- telligibly. Behind the negro Horton, the sawyer, was shouting hoarsely. A little back, a half-smile upon his thin, handsome face, Trueman stood with folded arms. - Then, thrusting himself forward, the saw- yer shook a gloved finger in Willis’ face. “You go on home, youngster, and rest up for the balance of the day,” he said. “‘An- other six inches before Jim Trueman got you by the feet, and you’d have been flop- pin’ around here in two pieces.” And he mopped his anxious face with his glove, leaving a streak of grease behind. With a falling-away sensation at the pit of his stomach, Willis turned and gazed with widening eyes at the whirling trim-saw, the existence of which he had forgotten, but which, inevitably, would have ripped him = with the board upon which he had The foreman, a youngish man with gray- ing hair beneath his cap, came running up. Meeting him with his expressive smile, Trueman said: “Mr. Higgins, haven’t you a man you can send in here to take Shaw’s place for the balance of the afternoon? He’s—well,” he paused to laugh. “The old bear’s been right behind him for an hour or so.” Smiling understandingly, the forman nod- ded and turned away; and Willis, some- what shakily, descended the stairs and left the mill. The incident was closed. Per- haps for those he was leaving behind amid the shriek of saws and the clank of ma- chinery it was not an unusual part of the day’s routine. For him, it held the added significance that to the man suspected of having robbed Ecomicbooks.com