Argosy, Vol. 112, No. 2 — page 32: what you’re looking at

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

198 sear and naked in the winter night breeze. But they were thick enough to serve as a screen. Keeping these willows in line to cover their retreat, they reached the curve around which a few moments before the great train had come hurtling to find an- nihilation ahead. far around the curve and down the tracks, the great starlit arch of the Asiatic heavens hanging over them and the vaster snow-bound steppes rolling away into oblivion, the American paused for breath. “We're saved—for the moment, any- how,” he panted. He turned then to look at the Czech. Tor the man was staggering. He reeled and. went down on the frosty tracks. There he sprawled, ominously still. Herring dropped the bag, knelt beside him, straightened him out. “God in heaven! Don’t go soft on me now, Joe!”’ he cried. ‘‘ What’s the matter, old man? What’s happened?” But the Czech was unconscious. Then Herring saw. From the Bohemian’s face and neck blood throbbed. It was a sickening wound. Josef had not been so fortunate as the Yankee in clearing the jagged glass of the car window. After a moment the man rallied, for his fiber was toughened by three years of cam- paigning. ‘Go on!” he gasped feebly. ‘“ Leave me and make safety for yourself, Meester Her- ring. Me, Il am cut with the glass. Make safety for yourself, I tell you!” Herring glanced around desperately. A year, a month, yes, a week before, Jim Herring might have thought only of his own skin and accepted the advice. But Jim Her- ring, the big city newspaperman, was being remade out here in this wild land of Siberia. The craven yellow of all his former life was being ironed out of him. He was learning what it meant to be a man. “The devil I will!” he cried hoarsely. “We've fought our way so far together, old man. We stick it out now or we croak here, shoulder to shoulder. Let me tie you up somehow in this handkerchief.” ‘Make safety for yourself!” cried the Czech. ‘‘Leesten! They are coming— THE ARGOSY. — Bolsheviki!”’ He fought for strength. “Go! Go!” | ‘ Never!’ snapped Jim Herring. The sound of hoarse shouting grew nearer. “Get up, Joe! cried the Yankee. The Czech tried nobly. But he was growing momentarily weaker from quan- tities of lost blood. He staggered to his feet. But the starlit world reeled about him. His knees went limp and he crumpled. ‘* Please, please, Meester Herring. Make safety for yourself!” he cried heroically. It was a terrible half moment. Every instinct ef self-preservation in the Yankee called out within him to flee. And there was the money for which he was responsi- ble. But there are sacrifices in the human soul which only one psychological moment in a lifetime brings to the surface. This was one of those moments. There were no heroics, no speeches made in this one big moment in Jim Herring’s life. He simply caught up the bag of rubles and cast it from. him as far as his strength could heave it. Over on the other side of the gully it landed. Its weight broke through the soft crust and it disappeared from sight. The American marked the spot where it fell by a copse of denuded willows. He could gamble on recovering it later. Then he knelt by the prostrate man and sought to stanch the flow of blood on face and neck. 50, because of his loyalty to a comrade in a common predicament, Jim Herring, the yellow journal war correspondent, was captured. For God’s sake, get up!” II. THE Red Guards came up, shooting, but none of their bullets made their mark, and Herring had the good sense not to return the fire regardless of his hysteria and the invitation his automatic afforded. He was one man against a company with a single magazine of cartridges. It meant suicide. He waited, tense in every muscle, expect- ing the shock of the bullet-impact. Then, seeing that his hands were above his head, they ceased firing and came upon him, bel- lowing senselessly. (E(@) Gomichbooks