The Argosy, August 1914 — page 23: what you’re looking at

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

NOBODY LOVES A LOSER. side-wall, gained foot after foot. At last he stood directly beneath what he discovered to be an open hatchway. Some inkling of the situation dawned on him as he looked through the square ten feet above his head to a windy, gray sky. A new problem confronted him. There was neither companionway nor ladder by which he could mount to the open air. While he stood there staring, a deluge of green water poured in, leaving him drenched. Without wings or a ladder he was helpless. He adopted the only pos- sible course, resuming his exploration of the compartment for some means of egress. To remain where he was meant drowning like a rat in its hole, for the first inrush of water was being succeeded by others. The storm was rising. A detailed account of his painful circuit of the vessel’s hold would be superfluous. Enough that an hour later, having searched vainly every inch of the dusty pit, he arrived again at the hatchway without having dis- covered any possible way of climbing out. He lifted his voice in a shout. It was incredible that he should be the only living creature on this monstrous hulk. But his tones came back so empty and forlorn that he refrained from trying again. At one end of the craft, which he guessed to be the bow because the bolts sunk into the other suggested a rudder-post, he had found a boarded partition. He decided, after due re- flection on the hopelessness of his case, to return thither and examine it more carefully. He was rewarded by finding—with his fingertips, since the light failed— a loose board. He could only guess what might lie behind it. It was suff- cient that it suggested a chance. Ac- cordingly he worked at the crack until he was able to lay hold on the board and, by exerting his entire strength, wrench it loose. 13 Disappointment met him again, the opening giving only on a narrow be- tween-partitions. He felt better for being occupied, however. Using the board he had removed for a lever, he managed to rip off another, and a third. It dawned on him then that the wall of matched stuff beyond was merely thin casing. Such it proved. With heel and improvised battering-ram he forced it to give way and—it may have been three hours after he came to his senses—crawled through the opening into a small forecastle. A minute later, ragged, black as a stove, and bleeding at the nails, he was on deck, and found the suspicion which had arisen while he stood sta- ring up at the open hatchway con- firmed. He was on an empty coal-barge which, broken adrift from its tow, tossed like a chip on the angry rollers. The low, hurrying clouds overhead in- dicated that the gale would increase before it abated. As far as his vision could reach in every direction were only empty water and empty sky. Well as he knew the ocean, he had never until that moment realized how insignificant a human being may feel alone upon its heaving surface. There was no satisfaction in the knowledge, but the mystery of his plight was rapidly clearing. His chance friends, Larry and Harry, with their proffers of fraternal sympathy, were plain highwaymen of the com- mon or New York variety. Having spotted his roll, they had set out to acquire it for themselves. It had been necessary to .resort to force in the end to accomplish this. Then, anxious to dispose of their vic- tim, whom doubtless they thought they had killed, they had carried him to the © river and thrown him aboard this hulk. For such consideration as their leni- ency indicated Jack mentally thanked them. Afterward, as fate ordered, the CORMICLOOOKS (C@)