Argosy, Vol. 112, No. 2 — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

THE SINGLE TRACK. world which I should think would have appealed to you—” “ That’s just because father was able to give me a little better schooling than he had himself, I guess.” Jane laughed, too, but it sounded hollow in her own ears. What a dismal failure her attempt at dis- simulation must be, when every one, from Ma Heaney to the head of the outfit, could see through her like this! Still, he had not actually recognized her; there was a grain of comfort in that. They had turned the corner of Main Street once more, and were nearing the barracklike bunk-houses and mess, when above the increasing hammer and clanking of the pile-driver and crane there came a hideous, deafening roar, and somewhere back of and beyond the company store a flash of lurid red rose for an instant against the sky and died like the blast of some huge furnace. Then came hoarse shouting and the heavy thud of many rushing feet, but Jane was scarcely conscious of it. At the first echo of the explosion Hoyt had dashed forward, and now she was following, run- ning as she had never run in all her life before. The bull gang from the storage yard over the way and the dock hands were converging in a crowd before what seemed to her to be the main office just beyond the company store, but as she neared it she saw that their interest was centered on the group of miscellaneous shacks clustered behind it, from the midst of which a thin curl of smoke was rising. She wondered vaguely as she sped past them why the men waited out there on the sidewalk, but she did not hear the warning shouts which rang out as she darted around the office shack and dashed through the clinging mud which clutched at her ankles; the chief had gone that way. Why did they not follow? She rounded another shack and _ halted suddenly. One of the smaller ones, a mere shed, had collapsed utterly, its rain-soaked boards blackened and smoking. Beside it a solitary figure in overalls and rough flan- nel shirt lay stretched upon the ground, and Hoyt was bending over it. Changed as were the surroundings, the 281 scene brought back in a darting flash of memory that other time when Hoyt had ministered- to the tramp her heedlessness had injured, but she did not give herself time to think of that. Rolling up the sleeves of her sweater, she sprang to his side, and kneeling in the mud, she lifted in her arms the bloody head of the unconscious man. ‘““Good God! What are you doing here?” cried Hoyt. ‘‘Go back! There may be another explosion—”’ But Jane was not even listening. With her inadequate scrap of a handkerchief she was wiping away the warm blood from the boy’s face—for he was only a boy, and there was a look of Ollie about his sandy hair and firm, square chin. He was one of her own, one of her com- panions here in the work they were all do- ing together, and their common enemy had done this to him! She did not for an in- stant question that there might not have been foul play, and a wave of mingled com- passion and rage shook her from head to foot. She clenched her teeth, sobbing. “Those Unatika wretches! G-give me your handkerchief, Mr. Hoyt! The poor boy! O-oh, I’d like to—” She was lifted bodily to her feet and spun about in the mud on them. ‘“ Get out of this!’’ Hoyt ordered stern- “Quick! Ill bring him!” He picked the limp figure up in his arms and swung it over his shoulder, and Jane meekly followed. She did not know why the men cheered when they reached the sidewalk once more, nor why that strained, listening look died so slowly from the conglomerate mass of faces which clustered about them. The strange, savage rage had left her, and she shivered and drew down her sleeves over her arms without noting the stains which covered them. “Jumping Jupiter!” A pudgy hand seized her and dragged her aside. ‘‘ What in Gosh Almighty’s world do you mean by taking a chance of gettin’ yourself blown to kingdom come for a squarehead?” It was Jud Pittinger’s voice, raised in a wail of admiring protest. ‘‘ Don’t you know there’s dynamite stored all around there?” ly. DOOKS COMIC com