Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 7, 1925 — page 156: what you’re looking at

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

— curses. | ; Bealene black eyes and curling raven hair, his bold nose and square chin, a picturesque ___and elemental figure. : For a year he had been at Blackwater, coming from the Fox - River paper mill region in Wisconsin. Never, declared Bly, had the mills had so efficient a machine tender. _ brought him preference over the others, with — - a substantial addition to the high wages paid workmen of this class. He had quali-. fied as a sort of assistant to Bly without the title. However, his record contained a serious flaw. He was temperamental and given at times to unexplained tardiness at the Be = change of tours, as the three daily shifts of eight hours each were called. Because he had so practical a command of his job, Bly passed over these infractions. A long ca- reer as superintendent of paper mills, deal- ing with one of the most difficult and in- dividual types of workers to be found in the ranks of industry, had taught Cal philos- ophy. “ Depend on it,” boomed Mal, “ Pete’s at the bottom o’ this bootleggin’ mess around here that Vardaman and his depu- ties are watchin’.” ‘Down near the back end of the great Fourdrinier, where a shallow stream of orayish water seven feet wide flowed swiftly toward the speeding dryer rolls, sounded suddenly a scream like a maddened cat’s. it was the signal Known to Every news | - last crumbs, straightened, yawned, and print mill, announcing a “ break.” The dumpy little hacktender, a cfnaller _ replica of Gregg as to costume, had squalled the warning. Then occurred hectic mo- ments, appropriate enough for the reclam- ation ei the fiber that would be later reel-— ing off the presses of huge metropolitan dailies, bearing their screaming headlines of battle, murder and sudden death, of scandal and intrigue, of all the concomitants of the blessed interval of peace that has followed the World War. While Bly stepped back, like a raging gorilla Mal Gregg leaped to the footboard, along which the backtender was already : ‘scampering, monkey-wise, screaming his -Gregg’s thunderous tones mouthed oaths deep and terrible. Always this job His skill had =o Sepane a break, as from the beginning -ARGOSY- ALLSTORY WEEKLY. in the ails of news print, was done with extraordinary agility, with passionate zest. and with sizzling vocal sulphur. _ Along the running board the pair of them darted, tearing out the whizzing fragments of paper running at dizzying speed through the whirling dryers, thrusting practiced hands into deadly traps, working back to splice the wet sheet anew, for these breaks are always mended while the machine is running at the rate of hundreds of feet a minute. and the floor at the side of the Fourdrinier piled high with shreds and patches of news, ‘mounting toward the roof. ‘Within an incredibly short time the new sheet was running smoothly over the dryers, and under and up and between them, while Gregg and the backtender stood again at the head and the rear, easily with folded arms, ruminating over their cuds of tobacco as do their kind in untroubled mo- ments. Meantime Bly went to other de- partments, looking for more trouble, and hoping he would find none since the mills were already behind on orders. _ At noon the gong sounded for the lunch hour. The laborers and the shipping and finishing rooms knocked off, but the men in charge of the speed apparatus just reached for their lunch baskets and ate with one eye fixed on the machinery. Reflectively, at last, big Gregg blew his reaching down into a pocket of his atro- cious trousers produced the “‘ makin’s ” and rolled his own. That there was a stringent rule obtaining against the use of cigarettes in that room troubled him not at all. He rolled a black eye at the speeding sheet; she was running good. : “Be back in a minute,” he called to his backtender, who squatted further down the room, his saturnine face surrounded by huckleberry pie. Then Gregg sauntered out and to the finishing room, where Mat- tie Briscoe and her bevy of assorted Hebes were eating their luncheons among the piled tiers of counted and uncounted “Barefooted. savant and débonar- came Mal Gregg into that room, padding softly Meanwhile, the air was filled with steam, paper, torn tempers and profanity, (eOnniikel sxoro KS (E(0) _ aa