The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1910-08-17
LEVI AND THE DYNAMITE.
BY ALBERT w. ToLMAN.

stSfffS ~ ~ ~ !. : -
The ramshackle old powder-house
stood twenty feet from the rear brink
of the Sturdevant limerick quarry,
behind a grassy rampant almost level
with its caves. 1t was mere sentry
box, seven feet square, unpainted,
windowless, rooted with corrugated
iron, as a protection against blast
hurled boulders. 1t was still called
the "powder-house, although for
years no explosive hut dynamite had
entered its battered door
A ten-hole blast had Just been fired
IN the quarry bottom right under it,
and the men swung down again on
the drag by Micah Day, the engineer
Levi McCorrison, his nephew and as
sistant, was throwing on some fresh
coal. when John Sturdevant, owner
of the quarry, came up to the engine
house in his new rel automobile with
two friends.
John thought good deal of that
hole in the ground-and we'll he
might. Out of it had come not only
that very automobile, but a ten-thou-
sand dollar house and a year in Eu-
rope, to say nothing of good living
and growing bank-account.
The three men came in, laughing
and joking. Sturdevant shook hands
with Levi and his uncle.
"Can you put us on the bottom
without breaking, Micah?" he asked.
Easy as eggs" replied the engi-
neer.
The visitors got on the drag, and
swung out over the two hundred feet
Of space. Johns friends showed
their nervousness by gripping the
chains tightly, as they looked down
to where the sledges were ringing.
Soon they stood safely on the bot
tom.
A loaded drag was hooked on, and
Micah began to hoist it slowly. Lean
ing through the open window, Levi
watched the brown hats of John and
his guests as they moved about over
the blue limerick. Then his gaze
travelled up the opposite bluff to the
ten feet of earth at its top, crowned
by the rampant before the powder
house.
His eyes opened wide. Surely he
must be mistaken. 1t could not be
that the bank was bulging out.
But it was. Out spurted cascade
of dirt and small rocks, and shor
downward; an instant later it rat
tied on the bottom. A yell of alarm
arose, and four or five men who were
barring and sledging close to the
bluff dropped their tools and sprang
back, with faces upturned.
For just second Levi stared STU
pidly, not grasping the full extent of
the disaster that impended. He saw
the rampant melt away and pour over
the edge. until the whole side of the
powder-house was revealed. Then
the old building itself slumped, tilted,
slid slowly halfway down the slope
of fresh dirt and rocks, and stopped
not six feet from the brink.
Levi remembered what lay within
those weather-beaten walls, and his
blood almost curdled in his veins.
Ten fifty-pound boxes of dynamite
had been stored there the day before.
What would become of the men be-
low when that iauarter-ton of high
explosive struck the bottom!
He looked at his uncle. No words
were nacessary Micah's fnce wac
colorless. his cheeks fallen in. He
understood. Only the clank of the
engine and the slapping Of the cable
broke the silence.
Some one cried put below, and the
horror In that voice quickened Lewis
pulses. At last the men down rherc
realized the peril that threatened
them. Perhaps from the farther cor