Adventure, February 20, 1922 — page 173: what you’re looking at

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

- wagons up from the left. The Closed Trail " “Nothing doing,” he said to angry ex- postulations from the larger men. “It’s a tight place, like I told you, and I want good little men, not good big ones.”’ The two wagons with the logs had by this time come around. “Pile a lot of rocks on the wagons, all that’ll stick,” he ordered. ‘‘After we blow in the gate we’re going to roll some of those logs into the passageway, and pile ’°em up for a breastwork, to work behind. Two of you take your saddle ropes and stay on the right-hand side outside the gate, so. we can ~ snake the logs across. We'll take the After the gate goes keep out of line, because it’s going to be an unhealthy place.” And to all he added— “When you see us coming out of there, like a bat out of , get ready to duck, for if everything goes according to schedule there’ll be a lot of stone coming this way in a hurry.” VHEN the dynamite arrived Gor- a opened a case. Taking out FaSinddd a stick he unfolded the paper wrapping at one end, and made a hole in the Es: soft giant with a pointed stick the size of a lead pencil. Cutting a foot of fuse, he slipped one of the innocent-appearing caps —-which looked like a rimless, empty .22 cartridge shell but contained enough ful- minate to blow a hand to bits—over one end and clinched it on with his teeth. Pushing it into the hole, he pressed the giant back around the cap, wrapped the paper about the fuse and tied it firmly with a bit of string. He split the other end of the fuse so that it would light easily, laid the prepared stick down and fixed another in the same way, only with a yard of fuse. This last he put back into the case, re- placed the cover and wrapped the whole with many layers of raw-hide lariats. Meanwhile others had prepared four more cases in the same manner, without the rope wraps. “Put ’em on the wagons, boys, and one more with them,” he ordered; “‘and some of you climb up to hold ’em on. “Pass the word to begin shooting at the windows, and you fellows that’s going with me take a long breath, because you won t have time after the ball starts.” He picked up the single stick of dynamite, and, as the rifles began to rattle and glass to 171 fly, walked to the edge of the trees, looked intently along the line of the windows, and seeing no smoke from any of them, stepped into the open. No shots were fired at him. He waved his hand. “Come on,” he yelled, and, wheeling, ran for the gate. The two loaded wagons, with some of the men running alongside, followed him, and swung in close to the wall at the left of the arch. “Turn the horses loose, and give ’em a start,” said Gorham. boxes with fuses against the wall.” Working rapidly, they piled ten of the logs over the four cases, Gorham placing the single stick of giant with them. Then they put the other box at the bottom of the gate, with the wrapped bomb on top of it, and logs over all, with the stones wedged firmly against them, taking care that the fuse lay free. Also they turned the wagons bottom-side up on the pile. One of them touched a lighted match to the fuse, and as it spit and began to smoke they ran to right and left and threw them- selves flat at the base of the building. The giant let go with a stunning crash, stones, logs and pieces of the wagons flying, and as the smoke drifted away jets of smoke © began to spurt from the trees, sign that the gate was gone. “Pass the logs up,” Gorham shouted, and ran to the open arch. The bullets: of the sharpshooters among the trees were pouring through, buzzing like a swarm of angry bees, and already the besieged were answering them. Many of their bullets, purposely aimed so, struck the top and sides of the passage, whistling and shrieking as the deflected lead glanced from the stone, filling the space with dust and flying fragments, while a fan-shaped area was marked with | spurting jets of dust clear out to the trees, from which the bullets struck splinters of wood and bark, sent down showers of leaves and twigs from the branches, or buried themselves in the trunks. 2 The roar of the firing was such that even shouted words were hard to hear, but Gor- | ham’s men knew what they had to do. The men on the right side tossed a rope across the gateway and a log was Jereeg cross-wise of the opening. Throwing himself flat, Gorham wormed = out behind the log, two others following —_ “Put those four. Eomniic ® WOOT com es we te iy