Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 170: what you’re looking at

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

169 A little mist lay on the flats, and into it I followed the twin lines of gleaming rail, striving to see them aright. For just be- yond the camp they seemed to vanish. “It’s just the fog,” said I; and with that word a little breeze came up and swept the fog away. Northward for three miles the flat bosom of the Quag lay naked before us. The new- laid track ran to its edge, and stopped short there. No, it began to slant downward; the rails pitched sharply, bent in mid-length, and then disappeared in the belly of the earth. And beyond, where a six-foot fill had run north for four hundred yards, the Black Quag lay empty. A streak of pitch-black, liquid mud, full twenty feet wide and bub- bling sluggishly, was all that showed where the grade had been. Four hundred yards north it ran, like a grinning mouth; and beyond it were the surveyors’ stakes, un- touched: But trestle and fill, and per- manent way, and the construction engine with its long string of cars that had stood thereon last night—they were not. The - Quag had taken them to itself. I shook my head, for I was fond of the boy; but he must know. ~ “Call Mr. Roberts at once,’’ I ordered. There was no need. I heard a choked cry at my elbow, and Warren Roberts stood there, his face, still flushed with sleep, working strangely. “Gone!’”? he muttered. “It’s gone!” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Buck up, Warren! It’s to do over, that’s all. Dump enough dirt there, and you could fill up the ocean, let alone the Black Quag.” The words rang false in my own ears; but they cheered Roberts. He straightened. “You're right, doc! Flint, turn out the men. Snap into it, now! Tell ’em to get those dirt-trains loaded. Phone the hotel; have all the engineers hurry down here.” He plunged back into the office. When I followed, he was at the telephone there, ordering more engines, more dump-cars,~ more rails and ties. “Send you home in the big wagon when it comes,” he threw over a shoulder at me. I left him alone. If he had underesti- mated the Black Quag, the boy was showing a good spirit now. Yet I shook my head doubtfully. Lily-White Hand was still here; and I was sorry for it. would come of him, I felt. More trouble Adventure A buckboard, drawn by straining horses, wallowed along Canada Street. By the railroad crossing it stopped, and old Simon Black climbed down and came shambling toward me. His rubber boots squelched in the mud. He nodded to me, strode to the edge of the Quag and looked down at those bent, vanishing rails. Then he spat; but not on the Quag; and turned back without other comment. ‘“‘C’m on, doc,” he invited. “I’m goin’ t’ the factory. I'll take ye home.” So I went with him to the road, and scrambled on to the buckboard and sat on the backless spring seat beside him, in front of the six huge “big-mouth” milk cans which Simon Black would not give up. He was an old man, and set in his ways; and five hundred pounds of milk troubled his huge frame little enough. ‘““Giddap!”’ said Simon. We rode in silence for a mile or more. Then Simon spat. “Huh!” said he, and his voice held an obscure satisfaction. ‘‘Where’s y’r railroad now?” CHAPTER VIII LILY-WHITE HAND AGAINST THE BLACK QUAG aque next day was a busy one for me. I tired out two teams, for the wet weather was taking toll of our farmers. And all through my ride I wondered; won- dered what tale Lily-White Hand would tell his chief; wondered whether Roberts would accept it—and, if he did, what the Black Quag would do next. I got home at six, to a cold house. The Ladies’ Aid was giving a church supper, and Molly had gone to it. As for me, I do not love scalloped potatoes; no, nor baked beans—may I never see another bean!— so I went to the Putnam House to eat. Roberts was there, at the head of the long engineers’ table, and Lily-White Hand sat on his right. They two were close in talk. What explanation of last night Isaac Hand had given I never knew; but evi- dently it had sufficed. For he talked, low- voiced, and Roberts listened, and the rest with him. Hand sketched some plan upon the table- cloth with his knife-edge, marshaling dishes and silverware to illustrate his meaning. I am no engineer; the most of it was Greek to CN Wp) COmiclboo CO