Payette enterprise. (Payette, Canyon Co., Idaho) 1909-1935, 1916-07-06

they Fought with Clasps and Grunta
on the campanile-like balcony crown.
ing that skyscraping structure, he
knew, even as he saw two figures
was too late.
That much he knew, even before he
caught at enough breath to call out
warning to Enoch Golden or swing
about and spring for the second figure
already shrinking back in the shadow
of that many-columned cupola. For in
the hand of the second figure Manley
had already caught sight of a tell-tale
sheet of paper. 1t was a yellowed
and time-worn scrap Of paper, and lit.
tie more, but to Manley it had become
the emblem and pennon of desperate
cause, flag to be rallied round and
fought for, to the last ditch and the
last gasp, as harried soldiers fight
through the smoke of battle for their
colors.
And Manley, as he clinched with LIE.
CARS stalwart emissary, fought for 1t.
Nor was his opponent one to be de-
spised. The two men fought along the
crest Of that midnight tower as two
mountain lions might fight along the
brink Of an Andean precipice. They
fought with gasps and grunts, with
strange cultural sounds, with teeth
barred and face distorted, blind to the
blows that were given and taken, un,
conscious Of the fact that the very pa.
per for which they were fighting had
already fallen to the cupola floor, and
from there had been blown by the
north wind to the furthermost edge of
the cornice circling the stone column
supports.
Golden himself was already reaching
FOR that paper when Legar's confed.
crate caught sight Of It, broke from
Manleys grasp and dove bodily for |
where 1t lay. Manley, second later |
followed him. There, half astride the |
balustrade of coppered wood painted |
to look like marble, the fight was re-
newed. Each crouched low as he
fought, drunkenly conscious now OF
the abyss that yawned so close to his
feet. But still they fought.
Then second breath of night
breeze, signing through the tower ton,
carried the paper slowly along the
cornfce edge. It was Legar's man who
saw 1t as 1t moved. He wrenched
away, twisted about, and caught at II
as 1t fell. But already he was too
late. 1t lifted with the wind, drifted
and eddied slowly about in the moon.
light, and fioated swayingly down into
the darker canyon of Broadway, where
It was soon lost to sight.
But neither Marley nor his enemy
saw that descent, for Legar's man as
ne lurched suddenly forward threw all
nls weight on the outstanding conner
,orn1ce, painted white to look like
marble. And 1t was a cornice made
'niy for ornamentation, and not for 8
support. For its fastenings surren. i.
Tered to the strain Of that suddenly. :
imposed weight and the buckling seq.
nent OF copper swayed outward as the
Iesperately-clinging fingers clutched e
It It's edges. i
Manley, hanging to the balustrade b
Win one arm, reached out to grasu a
nat buckling strip of metal to which fl
helpless man was hanging sheer I
yer space He caught at it, even as n
Folden caught at his straining shout =
ers to hold him steady. y
But law, stronger than the will of
Ian, seemed to suck the metal slowly.
,evitably, out of the clutch of his +
red fingers. Then the last fastenings
ave, the strained and twisted sheet. F
fetal tore slowly away, and the black L
1adow Of man fell like plummet to
lie iron and stone of Broadway. three
andred feet below. =,
To BE coNTNuEpJ 4 n