Argosy All-Story Weekly, June 27, 1925 — page 39: what you’re looking at

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

THE CALL OF SHINING STEEL. Zeb knew that their efforts were useless. That pile of packed, nail-filled wood and snarled iron was interlocked, woven into a homogeneous tangle that would takg hours to tear apart. There was but one hope. His one chance for life lay in the arrival of the wrecking crew. The “ big hook,’’ with its swinging crane, its dozen levers, its coils of steel cable, with steam and dynamite, might clear the stream and stop the rising water. The puny strength of these frantic men who pulled and cut, jerked and hauled, was futile. The erratic rasp of hurried sawing, a bedlam of shouts and orders, the blows as a sledge rang solid against tough, resisting iron and—the creek rose another inch. A brakeman was talking to Zeb, assuring and reassuring him. ‘Youre O.K., old head. The wrecking crew ’ull be here in an hour. Just got the message they’re half way here now. They’re clearing the stuff away fast. How you feel?” ‘Oh, all right,” answered Zeb wearily. Then fixing his sight on the tender, he saw his marks were submerged. The gilt letters on the black sides were gone, covered by the water. He closed his eyes. ‘Tell them over thar, they needn’t be a pullin’ and a cuttin’ at that air stuff. Thar’s only one chanst fer me. The wrecker.” The water bubbled under his chin now. A group of men raised him up a few inches higher till the strain on his leg was heart breaking, so intense was the pain. Zeb let out a groan. He heard voices from behind. Turning for the first time, he noticed a crowd of people lining the bank, watching, morbidly curious as he lay help- less while the water crept up—up. Stretch his tired neck as much as he would, it was chin high now. ‘The crowd agape on the bank, himself lying helpless before them, reminded him of a chicken with a twisted neck, flopping out its last movements on the ground of the barnyard while the rest of the flock stood around in an amazed circle, watching its involuntary antics. Tor a brief second @ panic, nerve shatter- ing, wild and unreasoning, gripped him. He threw back his head, his one idea to scream. Then his eyes swept the crowd and he saw Itchy-Witchy. Even as. his throat muscles tightened, his eyes impinged the picture of ber blue dress, her yellow hair, her red cheeks when he last hadseen her. Now her face was white, tears coursed down her cheeks, and Zeb knew that even as he suffered, she was suffering too, The scream was choked still bom on his ‘lips and calmly, stoically, he waited. There was but two things possible now, he thought. Either the “ big hook ” must ar- rive or—he refused to think of the alter- native. A groan sounded from the watchers above. Zeb anxiously turned around. Waist deep in the water, the conductor of the local approached. White faced, grim like a man who dreaded a necessarily painful task, he waded towards Zeb, a shining saw in his hand. “ Well, kid, now don’t you worry,” Willie Mac addressed him. “I'm not the guy to see a fellow drown like a cat in a sack before my very eyes. If the rest of ’em ain’t got the nerve, I guess I have. I'll fix you up ‘SO as you can get out. It'll be easy. You won't notice it at all. Just a couple of swipes with this saw and up you come. You’ll be walking around in a month.” Zeb nodded, tears involuntarily. starting from his eyes. On the bank above a girl Screamed—shrill, long drawn out, piercing, a cry of mortal terror and concern. Then a hush, an awed silence fell, broken only by the creek with little bubbling pattering sounds running down over the coal boards and circling around the boiler of the engine. ‘“‘ Whoot-whoot-who-who!” the call of engine whistle floated down. A cheer, shouting and yells, split the silence. “‘She’s almost here!” and Zeb, for the first time in his life, fainted dead away. With a solid plume of live steam roaring twenty feet straight upwards from both pops, the exhaust pounding the air with a flailing bellow and a cloud of black smoke trailing in her wake, the wrecking trein pounded the rails with her engine behind, her spinning drivers a blur, her side rods shuttling up the grades, scarce slowing a turn, sweeping around the curves and COnniEaoo () SS Co