Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine — page 153: what you’re looking at

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

THE MIRACLE. He diffidently drew a telegram from his pocket and smoothed it out carefully. “Yuh might be int’rested.in this. The professor sent one to every Dry Gulcher soon as he got Limpy’s letter.” The telegram had been despatched from Boston, and read: Dry Gulchers meet San Francisco, twentieth next month. Pluto unfortunate. Come pre- pared transfer all assets to Pluto trustee. PROFESSOR. Challenged by my look of bold inquiry, Mr. Betts explained in some confusion: (The OR hours we had ridden across deso- late Champagne, our horses picking their way over the pockmarked terrane, littered with the incredible débris of a race of degenerates possessing the strength of men coupled with the wanton destructive-- ness of children. . The heat of afternoon gave way to the cool breath of evening; the sun set in a fantastic smear of crimson and gold, and the more brilliant stars crept forth from a dome of lapis lazuli. Presently the moon, at the full, rose in almost artificial splendor. Back home they were speaking of it as the ‘harvest moon.” Here the only harvest was that of death, desolation, and despair. Seen beneath its amber light the picture changed from a landscape in brilliant oils to an etching in monstrous blacks and whites. It was as if we were crossing the ghostly contour of some dead planet. The battle line, stilled by the armistice, was 495 “Vou see, once Macdonald is trustee in charge of all our money again, it ‘ll give ‘im something to think about — an’ he’ll soon be his old self again. Anyway, it never was our money, whatever he might say. Right’s right!” I laughed mockingly. “Jack Rogers took the first boat from France,’ said Mr. Betts irrelevantly, his embarrassed eyes avoiding mine, “ an’ I’m just waitin’ here to go West with ’im, if he gets safe through them blooming subma- rines.”” : End.) - “The iracle- oe by John D. Swain well beyond—the returning tide of scat- tered inhabitants far to the rear. We were aione in a land at once empty and silent. Here and there an object caught my eye, and I guided my mount aside to identify it. Once it was the sparkle of moonshine from the staring eyes of a doll. Again, it was a crucifix, the wooden. figure hacked and de- filed. A broken iron pot lay beside a fifteenth-century missal, painfully trans- cribed and illuminated by some forgotten monk during slow creeping years. A torn placard affixed to a wall announced a boche beer-drinking contest. Beside it was the impaled body of a kitten—a mere scrap of moldering fur. _ Oftener there was nothing identifiable: houses had been wrecked and leveled, and then seemingly brayed in giant mortars, that there might remain nothing save dust, to be blown away by the wind and worked up into mud by the rain— to disappear comniclooolks.conn