Argosy, Vol. 112, No. 2 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

- former. 78 the platform, its huge hook gripping a sling of chain around two twenty-foot I-beams. The beams, balanced horizontally, were lifted half a dozen feet above the level of the top chord of the bridge. There was a pause in the hoist’s rattle. It began again. Swiftly the heavy beams were borne away. On them stood a swarthy young Spaniard, lightly gripping the pulley hook with one hand, lightly waving a ciga- rette in the other. Up to his ears came-the mighty blend of sounds. Even the Larshest of them: were broken and softened by their own: echoes until the whole seemed to harmonize into a mighty chord.. Something about it caused the youngster’s blood to tingle. He looked down. Swiftly under his feet the plank staging between the rails of the bridge reeled away. He passed over a puffing engine and its derrick. A group of sweating laborers toiled with a beam. Farther down, balancing on the edge of a girder, a rivet-catcher raised himself on tiptoe and reached with his powder-can for a badly aimed, sizzling, white-hot rivet. He missed it. The rivet faded, too small to see, long, long before it reached the torrent below. The dark features of Antonio Goro spread in a grin. That was his job—over on the other side. And he would not have missed. Another derrick rclled away from under him. He was nearly to the end of the big western bracket. Beyond that, for a thou- sand feet, he would travel with only ten long seconds of whirling space between him and whatever inferno there was below that brown-black roil of jumping waters. It was not of that’ he thought. His grin widened. Two big men—one so much bigger than the other that the other’s six feet looked almost insignificant—were standing on the last girder that had been placed. They were gringos—Americanos—but he held no malice. Surely this was a wonderful job they gave him, with superlative wages for work as pleasant as being a circus per- But these were the superintendent of this side and, most interesting of all, the ““beeg boss” of both superintendents. A little devil was in a hurry to get Antonio. THE ARGOSY. Antonio thought to disport himself for the big boss’s entertainment. He let loose the hand that had steadied him on the pulley’s hook. They looked up. Antonio gaily waved his arms. The superintendent’s lips framed ‘Damned fool!” Antonio chuckled. Then something happened. The loco- motive of the material-train from Machala blew its infernal whistle—a note all out of tune with the vast harmony of the cafion. Antonio started. His hand gripped back for the pulley hook; he missed it. He clutched at the chain as he careened side- wise, doubling to reach it. His hand caught. It jammed between the chain and the edge of the I-beam. Antonio almost relaxed his hold. Then he thought of the ten long, whirling seconds— just of those, not particularly of the end of the tenth. They were enough. Frantically he tried for a grip with the other hand. His pinched fingers would not lift his weight for an upward swing of his legs to clasp the beam between them. No, they would pull from their joint sockets, and—the ten seconds would begin to whiz past. : Todos santos! The engineer had stopped the thing. It oscillated back and forth. It cut deeper into his fingers. And now the accursed fool had started it back just at the wrong end of the swing. It was be- yond endurance. Ten seconds down! No—no—not that! Dios! No! Mil diablos! down with him. Down—down—it will crush him against the bridge end; it will press his body into the muddy gravel at the river bottom. ¢ Ugh! The end! That bump has fin- ished his fingers. But— He is not falling. A hand has gripped his wrist from above like a vise of steel. The_beams have halt- ed their-swift drop. What has happened? He struggled inwardly with the giddy blackness of fear that had swallowed him up and blinded him. He could not see clearly; he could scarcely feel that he was again being raised. He writhed now with the pain of that hard grip on his wrist. Gomichbooks The whole thing is going ©