Argosy, Vol. 112, No. 2 — page 30: what you’re looking at

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

196 It was bastard warfare in full operation. For a moment Jim Herring lay stunned, Striving to collect his scattered senses, to remember where he was and how he came there. lLaboriously he traced it out. First, there had been the nightmare. He had been riding a horse, a wild and fan- tastic animal, who bore him swiftly through Stygian darkness on hoofs that never touched earth. The animal had lost its footing. There had been a plunge off into the unfathomable darkness, the shock of contact with earth he could not see. Where was he, anyhow? He moved slightly and was conscious of something lying across him. He put out a hand and felt its size and shape. After a long time, months and months, it seemed, it all came back to him. He was in Siberia, a Red Triangle secre- tary in charge of a train of “ empties.” They would be taken back to Vladivostok and loaded with supplies for the Czech and British armies far afield. But the train had stopped. The great club-car bringing up the rear was tilted on an angle. A _ box- mattress from the bunk across the tiny apartment was skewed across him. As he lay there seeking to think this all out he became conscious of excited voices, guttural shouts and hoarse orders given out- side. A movement came near him. A human hand felt him over. He jumped and caught it in a grip of iron. Thereat he heard his name called in a weird whisper. He re- leased the hand. He felt hurriedly for his match-box and a tiny flame punctuated the darkness. In front of him, half-clad, dazed with sleep or terror, or both, he beheld Josef, his Czechoslovak servant. Joe’s rough-shaven features were ashen. His eyes were dilated. In one hand he had his regulation rifle with the bayonet fixed. The match-fire died. two in thick darkness. ness finally came,the Czech’s whisper. said one word—one dread word: “ Bolsheviki!”’ The American repeated the word foolish- ly for a time. Then he cried: ‘‘ What’s the matter with this car, Joe? What’s it tipped up for? My God, we’re wrecked!” Again they were Out of that dark- He THE ARGOSY. ‘“ Bolsheviki!”? came Joe’s panic-stricken whisper again. Up in one corner, on the side tilted to- ward the stars, was a long, narrow window. Through this window began seeping a weak, sickly illumination from without. The American felt his way forward through the interior wreckage. He climbed up and tried to throw the window open. The angle at which the car was tilted, wedged it tightly. ‘* Bolsheviki have made wreck of train, Meester Herring. You leesten. We are capture!” ‘“* Captured?”’ word blankly. ‘“EKtah Bolsheviki outside,” Joe whis- pered. “They think we are loaded train with supplies—”’ Joe’s words were drowned out by a sud- den, terrific thumping on the padlocked car door, the side opposite .from the win- dow. Only rifle-butts could produce such an effect. Through the Y.-man’s suddenly stampeded senses came the gist of what they were trying to make the occupants of the car understand. The shoutings were ugly commands to undo the padlocks, the rifle-butts abetting matters. “The money, Joe!” cried Jim Herring, a bit hysterically. For five months he had been hearing awful stories of the inhuman methods of the Bolsheviki with their prisoners. He had seen many sights in reconquered terri- tory that awakened him from his night slumbers with icy sweat on his forehead. Now he was wrecked by these same Bolshe- viki—they were just outside the door of the car, thumping down the obstruction. It was a nightmare of a situation that for a moment it seemed he should awaken from, even as he had awakened from the ride through the Stygian darkness on the gal- loping horse. As the thumping became more and more insistent, Jim found himself clawing around for the mattress on which he had been sleeping. Buried in that mattress for safe-keeping were one million rubles of old Czar money in notes of great denomination—Universal Harvester Company funds which he had The American echoed the (ECO AMICE .OOKS Eom)