The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-08-31

road man at his side, and there came
as if in answer from the chaos shrill
cry of torture.
The fire, leaping from point to point,
licked greedily at the dry wood of the
| splintered cars, aud again the piercing
| shrieks make Jack SILVER in spite OF
himself.
Ciambering over the mass of wreck
age in the direction from which the
screams seemed to come, he found
almost at The bottom of the great pile,
q woman, saved from instant death by
a freak of fate, but pinned down and
cramped until movement was impossi
BILE. She had swooned at the crash of
the collision, apparently, and had been
| brought back to consciousness by the
heat of the advancing flames.
One glance and Jack knew the face.
| "Ethelp
He reeled as he cried the name and
the woman shrank back even towards
death at the sound of his voice. In a
moment the weakness passed and he
attacked the imprisoning pile. Help
came from all directions and slowly a
way of escape was opened.
But the flames swept swiftly on,
scorching the girls delicate flesh, char
ring her golden hair and dragging from
| her shreks of pain that tore the hearts
of those who heard them. Jacks fe-
verish strength increased with each re-
curing cry, and he pulled and lifted
with power that amazed his helpers
and himself.
AT last he reached her, held her in
| his arms for a single moment, then
passed her back to willing hands. On
the instant piece of iron, its supports
burned away, dropped from the over.
hanging pile and felled him in his
tracks. They thought he was dead
when, senseless, he was rescued. But
presently, in an improvised farmhouse
| hospital, he came back to conscious
ness to find a flood of pale-gold hair
covering his face, to feel the warm kiss
of full lips on his bloodless ones and to
hear a sweet voice say
"Jackl My jack 1t is Ethel. Don't
you know me?"
If Jack had been physically stronger
perhaps the barriers which long months
of bitter contempt had raised would not
have been so easily swept away. But
as it was he whispered, my darling"
and raised one arm weakly TO fold about
her neck. Afterwards he was very
glad that he did, for the truth came out
little by little; he learned that the fault
was not Ethel's but her matchmaking
mammals, and that in the girls own
heart he had never been supplanted.
1t was some months later, when Jack
returned, hale and hearty, and with
new hope in his soul, to his work, that
the city editor said,-
"Too bad you had to miss your
chance at the Mad River wreck, old
man"
"Chance? What chance?" asked
Jack, bewidered.
"Why, don't you remember that you
were the only newspaper man on the
spot? If you hadn't got knocked out
we should have had the scoop of the
year."
"By Jovel That's So" said Jack, re-
gretfully. Sand l had quite forgotten
| it."
At about the same time the doctor
was saying to the brown-eyed nurse
what chance Bingham missed!"
"Chance for what?" she asked.
"For getting even with that girl, of
course. Instead of forgiving and for
getting, he ought to have turned his
back on her and married you. He
owed a great deal to you and he knew
it,"
The nurse moved quickly away, but
not until the doctor had seen that the
brown eyes filed with tears at his
words. He had learned what he wish
ed to know, but there was pain in his
H. n.t Nf Nov lxy
Magazine.