The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 2 — page 129: what you’re looking at

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

DARING THE DANGER ZONE. “ Why is it dark? Why is it dark?” he kept repeating to himself. Then the name Nancy Gale crowding into his consciousness. “Nancy Gale? Who is she? should I think of her?” As a child would do, he kept reiterating the name. Suddenly, like a ray of sunlight strug- gling through a cloud, rationality returned to him. : He remembered his descent into the shaft, his fall. Painstakingly he went back over the events of the day. ‘“T was walking down a drift,” he told himself. “I remember the ore tracks; then something hit me.” ~ As if in answer to his self-questioning, he heard a voice far away down one of the drifts say: “ Are all the men of the shift out?” Somehow the voice sounded strangely familiar. ‘“‘ Ves,” came the answer in a voice to which he had no clue. “Well, then, fire the shots whenever you are ready. I connected the battery myself,” rejoined the first speaker. This time Derby recognized the voice. He was a brave man, but when he knew that it was West Symmonds who held him in his power he shuddered, for he felt that his doom was sealed. He had seen enough of him to know that he was not a man to do a “ half- way ” job when it came to disposing of an enemy. “Why didn’t he finish it when he struck me with the drill, though?” he mused. He flung his arm out from him in a gesture of despair. It struck upon a wooden box. He groped inside it and felt a round, paper-wrapped stick. Then the whole diabolical scheme flashed upon him. After the shift had left the stope and loaded the holes Symmonds had dragged him from the spot where he had attacked him and laid his body against the breast of the stope that had been drilled. There kept Why * met no resistance. sli would not be enough left of him to be noticed by the ‘“ muckers” when they cleaned up after the shots. It was a beautiful revenge and perfect in that there was and could be no evi- dence. He plunged to his feet, the fever of excitement lending him strength. He pressed against the wall of the stope, swinging his hands madly up and down, in great sweeps like a swimmer, groping for the wire of the exploding battery. All about him lay Stygian blackness. The sweat rolled in streams from his face. Again he heard Symmonds’s voice: ‘Hurry up! What’s the matter?” ‘““In a minute, boss,” he heard the answer. “ Just wait till I tighten up this connection.” Gerard made one more futile sweep with his arms. His fingers failed to touch the longed-for wire. Then for no reason, except a wild desire for action of some sort, he ran madly into the surrounding darkness. Each step he expected to crash into a wall of the stope, but to his surprise he He flung out his arms and each hand touched rock. He had stumbled upon the entrance into a cross drift! The shattering roar of the explosion behind him made the whole tunnel quiver, but not one of the hurling fragments of rock penetrated his shelter. He groped his way ahead, every sense aquiver with the necessity of the fight for life. The tunnel grew more and more narrow. Soon he crawled on hands and knees. Then at last the tunnel stopped short. Grimly Derby retraced his way. When he again reached the stope it was dimly illumined by the light of candles and clat- tered with noise as shovels struck on rock and ore was piled into the metal wheel- barrows by the mucking gang. Derby waited in the shadow of the cross-drift, watching the wheelbarrows being loaded by the fantom shapes, then disappear echoingly down the drift that must lead to the shaft. COMMICOOOLK (C@