The Argosy, March 1907 — page 32: what you’re looking at

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

Me FLEA ¥ m ARS ; : ¥ almost seemed to see the eyes of his foe glaring at him out of the darkness. Noiselessly, and with infinite care, he rolled himself away from the spot where he lay, and edged inch by inch along the floor of the mine in an almost frenzied effort to escape. And thus he came unexpectedly upon an obstruction. Before he knew it, he had set his hand full upon something soft and yielding, and had started back with a_ stifled exclamation of alarm. Then, a great sense of relief swelling up within his soul, he sprang to his feet and jerked out his match-box. A moment, and the tiny flame glim- mered out to show that he was not mis- taken. It was Spear—Spear, supine and helpless in the shackles of insensibility ! Davis had luckily in his pocket a bit of candle which he had used in inspect- Ing a piece of excavation the previous day, and when his match burned out he produced this, and -after some delay, owing to the awkward necessity of using only his left hand, succeeded in igniting the wick. His first impulse, of course, was to ex- amine Spear and learn how seriously he was injured, but as the fuller illumina- tion relieved the obscurity of the cavern he forgot this purpose in a thrill of con- sternation. For the flickering. light of the candle revealed that his way of egress from the mine had been cut off. Between him and the entrance rose a jumbled heap of earth and timbers, and at the foot lay the hand-car, tusned over and half bur- ied in the rubbish. With this clue, it was not hard for Davis to reconstruct the sudden termina- tion of their mad ride. The old rails of the siding, unable to stand the strain of such terrific speed, had spread, and the car leaving the track, had crashed into some of the timbers supporting the mine’s roof. These being worn and rotted, had given way before the onset, and in their fall had brought down a section of earth, completely blocking the tunnel.. Spear and himself, thrown ahead by the force of the collision, had just escaped the avalanche. Forgetting in the agitation of this dis- covery even the excruciating pain of his es =e x < : . _—- No ere 5 o* fab oe ely weap ee IR Sats. THE ARGOSY. ) Bn, eee . - _« : : . = A Et a ee ee wounded arm, Gardiner scrambled over the piles of rock and débris to make an” examination of the barrier. Not much of an inspection was re-— quired,-though, to inform him that it was there to stay. engineering than he would have had small trouble in recognizing that only a steam-shovel could remove those pane: ous tons of fallen earth. Balked of outlet here, Davis lifted his candle high and turned an inquiring glance toward the other end of the tun- nel. No use to calculate on that, how- ever, for there, only a few feet away, . yawned the open mouth of the pit, and. behind it was,the blank granite wall of the mountain. He was literally en- tombed alive. Without a certain knowledge of his whereabouts, and on the bare chance that he might be within, was it likely that his friends would essay the enormous task of removing the accumulation of earth that shut him off? Was it not more than probable, in-- deed, that the “ Mollie Maguires,”’ for their own safety, and oblivious of the fate of Spear, would board up the en- trance again, so that no one should even. suspect that dark. tragedy which had taken place inside? An uncontrollable groan burst from Gardiner’s set lips as his mind pictured for him the agonies to come. Wounded. and in fever, he would have to endure the slow tortures of starvation, and in the end perish here in the darkness like a rat.in a trap. And then he was recalled to a more present danger by a moan from his com- panion, a feeble tossing of the limbs in a manifestation of returning life. If Spear recovered consciousness, and was ‘practically unhurt, his own shrift, unless he first in some way gained control of the situation, bade fair to be even shorter than he had bargained for. Therefore, only waiting to fashion a rude sling out of the neck-handkerchief. he wore and thus relieve the weight of — his dangling right arm, he hurried down the slope and made a rapid but exhaus- tive search of the insensible man’s person. The result exceeded his fondest expec- tation, for at the first haul he brought to light a wicked-looking knife and a A man far less skilled in — sicom- Somilenoo!