Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1916-10-15
CHAPTER XVII.
The Appeal.

The fuse was slow one. Evidently
II had been selected in order to pro-
long the agony. Bill Reillys nerves,
less under control than Buttons,
yielded to the strain and he seemed
to find relief in upbraiding the
wretches with whom he once had frat
ernized, but who now hated him with
Il deadlier malice than the man they
regarded as chiefly responsible for thf
gangs threatened disruption.
But, like all criminals, they were
towards at heart. and fled the danger
zone long before the kissing serpent
between the chairs could release its
true venom.
Burton felt quite resigned to this
last, stroke of an outrageous fortune
Within a few seconds or minutes
he never afterwards knew how long
u time elapsed while he was pinioned
in that place of torture--the events
of crowded life passed swiftly be-
fire his minds eye, He saw himself
a tiny outcast, playing with other
children of his kind among the ref
use heaps of a mining camp a sturdy
little animal whose body throN
the rCusn thar.,y u poor, while
: his mind was cramped in a narrow
environment, and he was driven I
work for living as soon as he was
able to use a shovel and swing a
pick.
The, panorama of years rolled on
He passed through the mill, was
taught by love that he had a soul
evolved for himself a sort of crude
philosophy of life, to be pitchforked
ultimately into wealth and social sta
ton only to find that those things
which seemed SO fair and desirable
when viewed from the swamp of pow
erty emulated the mirage so often
seen and never attained by the wan
ierer in the desert.
Was he reay to die? Did he really
resent being thus reft from life in
the plentitude of his physical and in
tellectual powers? He did not know.
He weighed the tremendous problem
quite altruistically, and was at a loss
to find satisfactory answer. Those
whom the gods love die young" What
did that mean? Many men inter-
preted 1t as signifying the latent jeal-
ousy of the mighty ones throned on
Olympus for those who in mortal
youth showed signs of possessing the
divine fire. On the other hand, some
hold that Jove is kind when his light
ming strikes man or maid while
the red blood still courses in ecstasy.
And who shall say which school of
thought is right? John Burton, tenth
marquis of Castleton, born aristocrat
If ever there was one, man reared
among common people who never
= theless bore in every attribute the
lineage of a hundred earls, could not
decide, though each fiery sputter of
the fuse at his feet brought him mo-
mentarily nearer those awful gates
which, once opened, would engulf him
forever.
Bill Reilly felt some regret that he
had not succeeded in accomplishing
what he set out to do-rescue John
Burton from the hands of the He'll
Cats. He wished to free Burton, not
for himself alone, although he had
great admiration for the titled mil
lonaire, who treated all men as hic
equal, but he did desire in measure
to pay, in the only way he could
Grace Coe for the kindness she had
shown him.
He regretted he had ventured alone
into the, hands of the Hell Cats an6
wasted a few precious seconds think
ingr how he might have let Blanche
Griffin be more. of help in the work
he had cut out for himself, He won
dered whether Grace Coe, when she
heard of his rejoining the gang, woplt
believe Blanche's story, that he haG
done it to aid Burton or would think
that ne had suffered change OF
heart. o.. sEH 90
He went back in retrospect over thu
life he had led as member Of the
gang and then smiled as he though
of the different and sweeter life hi
had lived since he became protege
of Grace Coe. He thought of Blanche
Griffin, and wondered what life would
1oaI ta hn1H of pnnlI a
have gone on. Then at the thought OF
letting the Hell Cats wreak their ven
geance on him another feeling came
into his heart and he resolved that
while he lived he would not give up
the struggle to defeat his old com
rades.
While Burton remained in deep
thought Reilly, made of coarser
clay dismissed the tender feelings
from his mind and bent his acute
wits and steellike muscles to q more
immediate and vital matter. After the
manner of his class, in his unregen-
crate days he had'sought relaxation in
attending circus performances and
vaudeville shows, and many a time
had looked on with professional envy
while some "hand-cuff" king or man
aclel manipulation" extricated himself
from letters which, to the uninitiated,
seemed to render their victim helpless.
Like most people who have given
thought to such displays he had
evolved a crude theory that muscu
lar expansion and contraction form
ed the secret of the experts ultimate
escape. True. the notion had never
served him when held in duress vile
by the, police, but he did now try to
stiffen his limbs against the bombs
placed on him by the He'll Cats, and
yielded to frenzied hope on finding
that by relaxing arms, legs and BODY
he had certainly loosened the ropes.
No sooner was the room ernptied
of the cut-throat gang, not one Of
whom dared even the slight risk Of
watching the actual explosion of the
bomb through an open window or
doorway, than he made a determined
effort to free himself. He succeeded
almost at once, and with a whoop OF
triumph ~wriggled out of the chair.
BY this time nearly three-quarters
Of the fuse was consumed, so this
daring fellow. without the slightest
hesitation, picked up the bomb and
hurled it through the porch far out
into a disheveled garden. Banging
the door, so as to obviate any risk of
injury of flying metal. he raced
back to Burton's side and began I'M
tying him.
The He'll Cats had gone about their
business more leisurely with the mil
lionaire, and the knots defied Reilly's
nimble fingers at first He had only
partially extricated the man whose
life he had risked everything to save,
when the internal machine exploded
with a deafeaning defamation. The
,la house shook MANY of its W ndoWs