The Prescott daily news., 1909-12-22
Under theRiver By HAROLD CARTER

Under the ooZe and slime of the river bed, far beneath the hulls of the g~cat ships that lay at anchor in the ! middle of the stream, O'Donovan and tlealy fought out their quarrel. ODonovan had taken Kate's photo gNaph from his overals ostentatiously and kissed 1t, looking the while insult ingly toward his former friend and conquered rival in the fight for the girls favor. Then he had laid by his overalls again and squared his naked shoulders to the spade. This was the instant when Healy sprang on him rom behind as a panther springs.
 They had no knives. and they could e9ch others faces with their fists They fought alone within the narrow 1irti~ht zone, out of the sight and hearing of the rest of the gang.
 Tn front of them the great shield fitted snugly into the tunnel which it had made, and all around oozed the gay slime, kept from overwhelming lem only by the force of the com pressed air, wall that wavered under the pressure, sometimes seeming to advance and then to recede again, and Altering into small waves that coiled round their feet as they stumbled backward and forward in that wild battle.
 At length the fight waS over. Healy tripped over the car tracks, and mo- ment later O'Donovan had flung him face downward into the muddy pool. He stood over him with his fists clinched, his face distorted and the muscles leaping at every movement under the bronzed skin. But Healy lay there moaning faintly. He had been worsted.
 Suddenly faint shouts were heard from the midst of the tunnel and the untitled ringing of the alarm bell. O'Donovan looked round in panic The walls were advancing, walls of slimy, gray-green ooze-viscid, clammy and foul walls of river mud that way cred and broke and trembled as the feeble power of the compressed air retained them, and then swept for ward in shuddering tidal wave
 With one yell of horror O'Donovan leaped forward toward the safety of the tunnel. He ran on and on blindly no longer a reasoning thing, but an animal driven by desperate instinct Then far in the distance the faint light of a bulb burst on his eyes and distant cries became audible. And then, re- called to himself suddenly he stopped He turned each way resolutely. Beads of sweat rolled down his cheeks and he clasped his hands in anguish. He breathed prayer.
 Then he went back. Swiftly as he had fled he ran. ankle-deep through the soft mud that sucked at his feet, striding and leaping over the granite piles and excavations in desperate haste to reach the comrade whom he had abandoned And now the hiss of the mud tide resounded in dreadful gurgles through the hollow tunnel
 He was not an instant too soon. The walls were closing together squirting before them long lava-like streams of slime waist-deep around him. And Healy was standing hard against the shield, clinging to 1t with both hands, held as in wise by the slime.
 ODonovan caught his enemy by the arms and heaved His broad back strained and cracked beneath the ef- fort. And slowly, very slowly. the mud yielded its victim. Inch by inch O'Donovan dragged him. leaving wide furrow that instantly closed in behind him, drawing his half-con- scious adversary toward the shelter of the tunnel.
 With roar like distant thunder the walls leaped together and a big wave