The interior journal. [volume] (Stanford, Ky.) 1912-1984, 1916-04-07
The Interior Journal Stanford Kentucky Friday April 1916

But Evart, obviously, knew what
he was about. For he took that OBJ
long of fiat gloom outlined in electrics
with a gentle upward undulation like
the upward swoop of bluebird alight-
ing on a maple tree. Into that artful
upward swoop was absorbed much of
! their momentum, for Evart had plain
ly remembered that their running
space was limited. But even with this
precaution there remained a perilous
paucity of runway, for before the
bounding and quivering organism of
nickel and steel and canvas came to
a stop it lurched head-on into wall
of the tower itself.
Manley could hear the crash of glass
as the damper plane at the nose OF
the quivering chassis brought up short
against one of the tower windows.
He was dimly aware of Matchmaking
and half-climbing through a network
CT wooden stuts and steel pianO-wlre
stays and cross-guys. He was vaguely
| conscious of Evart calling out that ev-
erything was all right, that there was
no damage which a nalf-nours work
couldn't patch up.
But Manley, IN truth. was thinking
little of either Evart or his tiier. Ali
his thoughts, as he climbed franticaily
up through the broken tower window,
were revolving about the problem as
to whether or not he was too late.
And that all-vital question still OBJ
sessed him as he mounted the iron
treads of the stairway leading to the
tower top, painting up flight after fight
until his lungs seemed bursting for
want of air, and his over-driven heart
beat drumlike against his rib-cage.
And as he reached the top and flung
out through the narrow door opening
on the campanile-like balcony crown
ing that skyscraping structure, he
knew, even as he saw two figures
standing there before him, that he
was too late.
That much he knew, even before he
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 Marley
had already caught sight of 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, a 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 Le-
gar's stalwart emissary, fought for it.
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, I'M
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 1t, broke from
Manleys grasp and dove bodily for
,, where it lay. Marley, 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 a second breath of night
breeze, signing through the tower top,
carried the paper slowly along the
cornice edge. 1t was Legar's man who
saw it as it moved He wrenched
: away, twisted about, and caught at it
as it fell. But already he was too
late. It lifted with the wind, drifted
and eddied slowly about in the moon
: light, and floated swayingly down into
the darker canyon of Broadway, where
it was soon lost to sight.
But neither Manley nor his enemy
saw that descent, for Legar's man as
he 1urched suddenly forward threw all
his weight on the outstanding copper
cornice, painted white to look like
marble. And it was a cornice made
only for ornamentation, and not for
: support. For its fastenings surren-
dered to the strain of that suddenly
: imposed weight and the buckling seq
ment of copper swayed outward as the
!" Observation-Disclosures fingers clutched
: at it's edges.
9 Manley, hanging to the balustrade
= with one arm, reached out to grasp
that buckling strip of metal to which
a helpless man was hanging sheer
: over space. He caught at it, even as