The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1908-12-23

valley he saw coming huge waves,
before which the trees dipped sudden
ly and the stampeding cattle dropped
as II shot.
The next moment there was bump
which threw him into the air, and a
rending crash which made his heart
stand STILL Then with wrench the
solid earth parted, and a mighty draft
of air sucked him like leaf into the
| black abyss.
In moment of great terror one acts
in a purely instructive way. AS a
drowning man clutches at straw,
so Nelse Walker, swept into the bos-
ON of the earth by an almost incon-
ceivable catastrophe, dropped his gun
and clutched out wildly.
His hands encountered tangle Of
roots-perhaps the roots of that same
broad oak beneath which. but few
moments before, he had sat at his
ease. At the touch he grappled with
them desperately, while the sand-laden
wind swept past him into the bowels
of the earth.
In spite of the falling dirt and the
tornado of wind which beat down up
on him, Walker clrVg to his hold with
the insane strength of man who fac
es sudden death.
1t was but a moment, but in that
moment great range of mountains
was split in twain, split to great
OF hn lci In,
that land, one man was caught in the
throe of nature, sucked into the gulf
which yawned at that moment across
three hundred miles of mountains. To
that one man the moment seemed an
age.
Deep into that crack swept the
winds of heaven. 1t yawned it's wild
est-and closed!
The thrush of air past Nelse Walk
er suddenly ceased; then, as the part
ed earth came together again, the
air which had rushed in was as quick
ly expelled. If mighty bellows,
miles in length, had been suddenly
closed from its uttermost, the effect
could not have been more irresistible.
Like leaf once more Nelse Walker
was blown upward by the blast. His
hands were torn from their clutch
on the oak roots, and the next mo-
ment he was hurled past the mouth of
the bottomless hole and shot out into
the light Of day.
How he came there he did not know,
but when Nelse Walker recovered his
his sense of locality, he was still
clinging to a tangle of roots-yet on
second thought he realized that they
were not roots, but branches. He
was in the top of tree. About him
the limbs were still rocking and way
ing, and smothered bumps still shook
the tree, as if a mighty AK was being
laid to it's roots.
A faintness seized upon the man
who had been the toy and sport of
the lements. Realization of his pre-
dicament and of his escape rushed in
upon him, and he nearly fell. He
clambered feebly down the tree and
dropped to the trembling earth in
faint.
The breath of the cool afternoon
breeze awakened him, and he felt
about instinctively for his gun. Then
it came to him that his gun was far
down in the bottom of the earth. He
rose. Before him lay the long fur
row Of the earthquake, still smoking
with the dust which rose from its new
cleft depths. Into this he had drop
ped, and from it he had been hurled
like feather
Small wonder, then, that Nelse
Walker was dazed, and wandered far
before he reached the station at Fort
TETON. Nor was there much which
was familiar there to bring him from
his dream.
The adobe buildings of the stage
houses lay crumbled in ruins, branch
es strewed the ground, and frantic
horses stampeded about in the corrals
When the station-keeper heard
Walkers story, he thought that fear
had turned his head. Bpt a search
for the lost gun on the following day
brought him to the brink of that aw-
ful chasm which had swallowed it.
The erosion and floods of forty-sev-
en- years have done much to fill the
great rift through the hills, so that
now in places it serves for a road-bed
or trail through the heavy brush:
but to the old settlers about Fort Te-
jon 1t is still the finger-mark of the
earthquake that swallowed Nelse
Walker.-Dane Coolidge in Youths
Companion.
A Noise in Court,
Cir Riohard