Los Angeles daily herald., 1886-11-28

stoke.hole. and then. after speaking to
the man in charge there, he returned to
his own solitary post.
After awhile he fell drowsy, and his
eyes closed for few moments, but an
undetined dread of something dreadful
about to happen caused him to start up,
rub his eyes and look anxiously around.
"What can be the matter with me!'
cried Hardesty, jumping up aud stamp
ing about to get rid of numbness in his
feet. sit seems just as if chap had
got the horrors. | feel that creepy and
shuddery 1 don't know what to do; aud
l know if l dropped off | should go
dreaming all the horrors that ever came
into fellows head.
1t seemed as though watchful spirit
kept whispering to him of impending
evil, and reused him to battle with the
overwhelming sense of drowsiness that
came upon him, to keep off which he
had several times taken draught from
can of water be kept there for that pur-
pose, though it seemed to have bitter,
UNPLEASANT flavor, which he attributed
to his mouth being out of taste.
He fought against the stupor falling
upon him again and again, rousing up,
too at the whisperipgs Of danger, that
seemed breathed around; and at last it
was with growing sense of horror that
he looked anxiously about, peeped once
more into the roaring crater of the fur
mace all but ready to vomit forth its
molten lava, as well as smoke and flame;
and then, with the drugged water effect
ually doing its work, nature could bear
no more and the stupefied man sank
breathing stentorously but without losing
his power of vision.
He had been in this state about a
quarter of an hour, when he saw some.
thing come slowly crawling from
where the darkness was blackest.
He would have shouted at il or thrown a
lump of coal--fed from it or struck it
with the great iron shovel; but he sat
helpless, as though in dream, while the
figure came slowly crawling to him, and
then passed out of sight behind his
screen.
All at once the figure came back;
swiftly rose to its feet, and then the
watcher recognized his adversary of the
struggle. But now the horror increased,
for the man seized Hardesty by the
collar and dragged him down upon the
floor, and then slowly and laboriously
toward the open, circular hole, where
the furnace was fed with fuel.
1t was large yawning opening. and
with helpless shudder, Hardesty felt
himself drawn nearer and nearer to the
mouth and knew that the fiend who held
I,s,,, ,uo. h,rt ko hurl hin, -,
"Curse!" muttercd the wretch, dash.
ing the head of his prey upon the bricks,
as he lay where the fire burned his face
and made his hair crackle. ''Curse you!"
he cried with fearful oath, and then,
in the very wantonness of his brutality,
he stamped with his heavy heel u oon
the poor fellows face, so that the blood
eushed from his nose and mouth.
Course youl you've struck your last
blow"
But the villain was wrong, for as he
uttered the words, and stopped down to
clutch Hardesty by the arms and drag
him forward, tine bleeding man seemed
to leap into life as though electrified,
rose to his feet; there was a momentary
struggle; an awful despairing shrek, the
sound of fall, succeeded by horrible
cracking noise, and Samuel Hardesty
kn&eled alone upon the brink of the fur
nacR. trembling and horror-stricken, with
his hands over his face, trying to think
it dream. The next moment, though,
he waf upon his feet, running towards
the engine house, shouting for aid--aid
for the man whose death must have been
But soon four or five
men we're gathered around the furnace
hole, ARMED with great iron rakes and
boat-hook from : barge, and then, plung.
ing them 4nto The roaring aamss, they