Adventure Magazine Cover — page 67: what you’re looking at

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

The Ends of Justice “Pull your wits together, Bill Haney!” Dick cried impatiently. ‘“‘Are there any others back there?”’ Haney shook his head. “ Just them two,” he said. “They went through the cars first, and put the fear of God on my pas- sengers. Then they brought me forward. And you—how did they pull you up? Is the track blocked?” With a hand to his cap, he leaned outwards and peered ahead. “Red light,’ the engineer responded curtly. ‘‘But the man that showed it will never swing lantern again.” “Ts he dead?”’ Haney asked. “Not yet,” was the grim reply. “He lies on the floor of my cab with a good rope about his arms and legs. It will be around his neck before long—God help me!”’ A spasm of agony, mastered in a moment, distorted the old man’s features. “Do ye know him?” the conductor in- quired, staring hard. The answer was long in coming. The steel-gray eyes under the penthouse brows stared steadily down the string of lighted coaches. ‘““He is my own son,” the engineer said at last. “Holy Heaven!”’ Haney cried, recoiling before a tragedy so much grimmer than he had dreamed of. ‘‘And—and what are you going to do?’’ “My duty!” answered Old Faithful sternly. ‘‘He goes into the hands of the sheriff at South Bend.” Words of sympathy, protest, advice, rose to Haney’s lips, but died against the granite wall of the other’s resolution, and he fol- lowed him meekly as he clambered into the express-car and made a hasty examination. The explosion had severely wrenched the safe, but the door still held fast. At the farther end of the car the body of the mes- senger lay stretched. There was a bullet- hole in the center of his forehead and it needed no expert in gunshot-wounds to tell that he must have died almost on his feet. When the two dropped out on the ballast again the heads of excited passengers were poking out of the coach windows, and sev- eral scared train-hands were making their way forward. ‘““Get the bodies into the car, Haney, and herd your passengers,’ Dick said short- ly. “I wait for no one. We’ve lost time enough already.” He turned his back on the scene of his a) 631 exploit and tramped back to his engine and the company of his doomed son. THE Blue Racer sped onward through the night. Back in the cars the passengers discussed a testimonial and an address. Forward the engineer sat on his leathern seat and stared grimly ahead. Mile after mile the giant wheels devoured, but his eyes never wandered from track and gauge to the log-like figure beneath him. The fireman, feverishly shoveling coal, glanced. furtively at it now and again, but the father not at all. Presently consciousness returned. James Toft shivered, sighed and opened his eyes. There was a roar like thunder in his ears, a hot blast beat upon him from the open door of the furnace, and a yard away a coal- grimed, sweaty face shone in the white radiance. Had he awakened in hell? He uttered a faint cry and strove to move his cramped limbs, but the coils were wound and the knots tied by a cunning hand, and he was powerless. Then memory came, and he knew what had happened and where he lay. He had played his cards badly and the game had gone against him, but he might yet save his own stake. ‘“Father|>—he: cried. There was no response, and he repeated the cry twice, with a sort of whining insist- ence. The fireman timidly touched the old man’s elbow. ‘‘He’s speakin’ to you,”’ he said. “D’ye think I didn’t hear him?” the engineer answered in a hard voice. ‘He is no son of mine. Tell him that I will have no truck with him. Tell him that at South Bend he goes into the hands of the sheriff, to deal with as the law says. Bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh he may be— more shame for me—but I do my duty.” “Duty!” sneered the son. ‘Maybe if you'd thought less of what you call your ~ duty, I’d ’a’ been different.”’ Dick answered no word, and the other twisted his head round to the fireman. ‘Here, you,” he gasped. ‘You seem a decent kind. Feel in my vest pocket and take out what you find there.”’ The fireman glanced at his superior, and, reading neither protest nor consent on the graven mask, complied, and took out a small oblong case of cheap frayed leather. “Open it!” said the bound man, and the COMMICLOOCKKS. ECO