Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 27, 1925 — page 117: what you’re looking at

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

““ Come yere!”’ he Shouted. « turrible is about t? 7 happen t? eee, Somethin’ Yumpa! ” CHAPTER xq. CATACLYsM. OW true his predict H thing terrible was about t pom to Yumpa, but not when constr in the light of law and order and d ered It was as if the elements had grown sin’ eously wrathful at this evi] community ties had so long’ flaunted itself jn the co ™ tenance of moral progress and Were ore. paring now to assault it. The cessation of the rain crystal clear and the three Sentry Rock could see the ae oe as clearly and as in fine detail as if it were @ photograph made with the rarest of lenses. A harsh yellow light illumined the scene with garish clarity. The hurricane. was sweeping down the valley in which Yumpa lay when Red Wil- pin and Margery Corbin reached Sentry Rock and took their stand beside Friday Pepper. Flocks of birds, driven before that awful blast, tumbled about like scraps of dark paper. Limbs of trees and leaves, and a miscellany of rubbish likewise swept for- ward in a nondescript wave before that mighty blast. Down in Yumpa the cottonwood trees were threshing from side to side in the on- rushing storm. One giant at the edge of the village was plucked out by the roots, as easily as a dentist removes a tooth with forceps. At the top of the precipice which rose sheerly behind the village on the east side, a clump of mesquite was torn free, and this went sliding down the wind. Pebbles and clumps of dirt slid down the Steep wall of the precipice and bounded upon the roofs of Yumpa. For a moment, a shower of mud obscured the watchers’ view of the town, and all that could be seen was the slender white spire of the Yumpa church, pointing upward toward the Storm, like a warning, admonitory finger. Then the mist cleared away, and the denizens of Yumpa. could be seen, huddled at windows, or clustered in panic-stricken 8A had left the air crumpling into a UR HANDs. Groups in buildings, = @ shriek. Ar, moving with a destroying spirit the speed G03 another Cottonwood!” Fi. e gale. Cried. “Its tum ing SOMersaults} Oh! Its Smashed into the iT | ar ip dn midair, as if it were es down on its edge. ion tin fragmen which were plucked up by the srreming Grand Palace Hotel!” Moment it remained in a kite, then it volplan “Thar goes th’ Friday shrilled. They could see that notorious leaning more and more in the wind, as if it were a house of cards being blown upon by & playfully destructive child. From its doors poured frightened refugees, and hardly had the last man emerged when Swaying drunkenly, the hotel collapsed A shower of gravel splashed down Upon the stricken town from the side of the pretipice. The Busy Bee Lunch, already minus its roof, was the next building to blow down, then, in turn, Wun Lung Low's establish- ment was flattened, the grocery store slid drunkenly forward and collapsed in the Street, and a row of private houses disin- tegrated, one falling against the other and accelerating the destruction. The last building on that side of the street wes a portable garage; and this was whipped from the small touring car which it sheltered and rolled off grotesquely down the valley. “Vumpa is doomed!” Friday shouted. And it was true. Where the village of Yumpa had stood, only e tangled cluster of tavern COnniEaoo () SS Co