Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-08-09
By "Bud'' Fisher

cessible to any wingless creature except
by way of the ice chimney. Even now.
when his fear for the girl was amount
ing to a superstition of almost irresistible
intensity, it did not occur to MIN TO
question that.
He steadied himself as best he could
and crouched down in the shelter OF the
big rock to await Roscoe's return;
He had hardly settled himself here
when he saw something that made him
shake his head impatiently and swear a
little. It was the winking glow OF an
aurora borealis off to the north.
Struggling as he was with tear when
his reason offered him no foundation LOT
he was in no mood to appreciate one y.
those internal. inexplicable exhipitiouis .
that q succession of those long arE.'s
nights had made him all too faniin .i, d
with. No familiarity could lessen 'i''
wonder OF 1t.
He hoped that this one might pass off
was not long before slender. ficker1ng'
greenish-white flash across the SKY con
WINGED him that he was in for 1t. he
remembered having read in capt rleia-
ing's journal how the members OF ms
own crew, and more particularly the
Walrus people, had been frightened TO
the verge Of terror by them. and how the
Portuguese had always fallen on MS
knees and begun jabbering his prayers
when one of these phenomena took place.
thought, to be vertically the fires of hell;
Cayley and Jeanne had often watched
these auroras from beginning to emo VIII
delight. but 1t had always been strange,
piquant sort of pleasure. that had
spice of terror In it.
on the beach, waiting for the man who
did not come. the wild, .freakish. inde-
Finally menacing quality Of those strange
lights affected him powerfully. The way
they leaped in long arcs clear across e
sky-and vanished: the way their prii-
liant steamers could haunt themselves
from zenith to horizon with all the col
ors of the sunset. and still leave the
earth as dark as it was after they mao
rolled up and Disappeared; the horriple'
winking. shuddering ghostliness OF them.
made it difficult to think of them as part
Of the order of nature-turned them into
a sort of malevolent miracle II was
never possible to tell how long they would
last. Sometimes they rolled up and LETT
the sky unvexed at the end OF a Few
brief minutes; sometimes they kept up
their witches dance all night.
The one he saw Frightening now was
developing itself into a stupendous spec
tacle The long. greenish pencils or light
ripping, Pickering. fading. flashing out
again, gradually established themselves
in an immense double devils rainbow
clear across the sky. The streamers,
which began presently to pour out from
both sides of it. ran gamut or color
from angry purple up to o., a flaming ing
half Of it, was banked with what looked
like luminous sulphur-colored clouds.
shot with ccasionai CLEANS of bright
magenta.
Cayley gazed at the spectacle unwill-
ingly, but still he gazed. And some
how, though he fought the feeling des-
perately, it began to assume personal
significance to him-a significance or
mOckery. The whole sky was quivering
with vast. silent laughter. was 1t De-
cause he, with his fancied cleverness ana
daring in finding Roscoes lair and wait
Ing for his return to it, was really doing
precisely the thing that Roscoe would
have had him do? Were those sky
witches laughing over what was happen
ing up at the pilot house while he sat
here and waited?
No intelligence. no sane power of con-
secutive reasoning can resist this sort of
thing indefinitely, and at last Cayleys
power Of resistance came to an end.
He sprang to his feet at last. dripping
with sweat. in spite of the cold, caught
took the air with q rush. Once he had
jerked himself aloft to height q little
above the crest of the cliff 1t was hardly
more than a matter Of seconds before he
came opposite the domelke mound OF
snow which covered the pilot house.
There was no light shining out of the
tunnel entrance. But that was as he had
expected it to be. He made it out easily
enough. and in another moment had
alighted there.
Jeanne he called.
1t was not the eXertion of flight. but a
sudden intolerable apprehension that
made him breathess. The word mad
halted a little in his throat. Exactly as
he uttered it he saw down the tunnel ana
in the pilot house itself a tiny spark OF
fire. and heard the click Of steel against
flint.
What the spark Illuminated were the
fingers Of a gigantic, hairy hand.
"Jeanne!" he called again. and now ms
voice came clear enough, wait min
ute and I'll make q light for you.",
Ito be continued tomOrrOw.)