Argosy, Vol. 112, No. 2 — page 29: what you’re looking at

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

This ig the last of a series of three stories having to do with an up-to-the-minute subject, put into fiction form by a man who not only knows the ground thoroughly, but is also one of the most popular writers of stories in the country. The first story of the series appeared in our August 30 issue. lil—The Man From Chagos. I, WILD blast shrieked from the loco- motive’s whistle. It pierced the Si- berian night—a wail of despair. The brakes went on. The tracks were showered with trillions of sparks. The huge engine leaped upward. With a wounded roar it gored the earth. Steel bars were twisted, rivets parted. Wooden car- braces.and cross-pieces snapped like pipe- stems. It was a terrible crash. For miles it echoed across the snow-bound steppes. An engine and forty huge Manchurian freight- cars piled blindly upon one another in a fearful ju ggernaut of destruction. It was over in an instant. The roar and the crash melted out into the eternal distances. An ominous quiet followed. Uncanny it was that so vast an organization as this mighty train could be rendered so quiet, so impotent in a moment. Then a shriek from a human throat voiced the great tragic aftermath. Once, twice, three times that shriek was repeated. A weird tremolo fluted through the night-air like the lowest note on a great organ. A hissing of steam grew louder. Then a whole cloud of that steam lifted from the chaotic mass and hid the stars. Down close to earth, near the bottom of the pile, appeared one tiny flicker of livid flame. Viewed from a distance as the flame grew momentarily higher and brighter, moving figures appeared, some afoot, some ahorse. Like demons before a molten mountain they ran back and forth before the stupendous wreckage where all but the last three cars were salvage. Special Red Triangle Train 72, en route eastward, Irkutsk to Vladivostok, had rounded a curve to find no iron where Trans-Siberian tracks were supposed, to be. The Bolsheviki had severed the line again. 195 fa / a « i vyy (e) - ys y { J Pi ca | * ri . ) *) ‘| id \ Gomichbooks Ny Ni Hi hey any yy » da] AN ae i a 7? }