The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1905-09-06

backward. His knees were almost on
the top of the bale; another effort and
i ne would be safely out of his predica.
ment. But as he pushed with all his
might on the sharp top of the steel
band his fingers slipped off. Down he
fell, and again his hands rested on
the floor OF the car.
| Harrigan at last realized that his
\ life was actually in peril. If he could
/ not get out now, when his strength
was practically unimpaired, what
| chance would he have lateri With
| numb fingers, swelled by the inrush-
ing blood, he fumbled once more up
and down the cotton. He found the
band on which he had raised himself
before, and strove to repeat his at
tempt; but he fell heavily back, this
time striking on his head.
A train rumbled by, shaking the
ground and making the car tremble
| under him. He heard two brakemen
calling out to each other, and tried to
| attract their atenttlon; but his voice
| was smothered in that narrow cavity.
A heavy, painful drowsiness was
creeping over the freight handler, a
strange, dull apathy that frightened
him. His strength was gradually ebb-
ing away. The part of his body below,
or rather, as now situated, above his
waist, was losing its feeling. The
blood surged through his brain so
strongly that 1t threatened to deprive
him of consciousness. Insensibility
was coming on, and insensibility meant
death.
Harrigan's toes were almost on the
top of the bale over which he had
crept. He had only to raise himself a
little more tnan two feet to have his
| bootsoles touch the ceiling behind the
beam he had crawled under. BY press
ing the backs of his heels hard against
this beam he could get sufficient lever
age to help himself out. The distance
was trifling, but there seemed abso-
lutely nothing he could grasp to lift
himself with.
Again he felt blindly along the bale
in front of him, and thrust his fingers
into the spaces between it and the ad-
jacent bales on each side. When cot
ton leaves the compress, the burlap
on the edges that have been lowest in
the press is tight to the point of burst
ing, while that about the upper edges
is much looser. Fortunately for Har-
f,trna1 toward
him, as the bale stood on end, We're
those round which the covering was
lose. This apparently trivial circum-
stance saved his life.
The corners gave him something to
grip. Numbed and swollen though his
fingers were, he found that by press
ing them hard against his palms he
could gather in very respectable
handful of the bagging. This gave him
purchase enough to lift his weight.
Raising his hands very gradually
and hardly daring to breathe, inch by
inch he worked himself up and back
in agony, clutching the coarse edges
with desperate caution. To slip back
now would be fatal. Little by little he
pushed his toes back over the bale be-
hind him. He lifted one of his heels,
and it touched the beam. In moment
it was pressed behind the firm wood.
A little more, and he would be safe!
Shifting his grasp with almost i'm
perceptible movements, he raised his
body slowly and painfully. Red lights
danced before his eyes; the roaring of
the ocean was in his ears. Up, up, up!
If he could only keep his senses few
seconds more! His body was now well
over the tops of the bales behind him,
but he did not dare to let go yet.
One handful more, one hurried, vio-
lent thrust that sent him back from
the edge of the dangerous cavity, and,
safe at last, he tainted dead away on
the top of the cotton.-Youth's Com
panion.