River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1918-04-11

driver acts from the spinal cord, and
not from the brain. Therefore his
brain may be seething with thousand
frenzies, but he will shove out clutch
and brake feet in an emergency, and
hold them out.
So it happened. The mans hands
left the wheel, but he stopped his car.
Not too soon. Not before it had struck
the cliff, and then taken a sickening
curve out toward the edge of the
precipice. But stop it did, on the very
edge of eternity, and the chauffeur
held it there.
"Set the hand brake!" Milky said.
The lamps were near enough the edge
to make him dizzy.
The chauffeur ceased struggling, and
set the hand brake. His head was stin
covered. But having done that, he
commenced a struggle more furious
than forceful, for both of them were
handicapped.
And now Milky was forced to an
unsoldierlike thing that he afterward
tried to forget. For the driver de-
vel0ped unexpected strength, refused
to submit, got the tunic off his head,
and, seeing himself attacked by one
man only, took courage and fell to.
He picked up a wrench from the seat
beside him, and made q furious pass
| at Nikky's head. Milky ducked and,
after a struggle secured the weapon.
All this in the car, over the seat back.
1t was then that Milky raised the
wrench and stunned his man with it.
| 1t was hateful The very dull thud
of it was sickening. And there was a
bad minute or two when he thought
he had killed his opponent. The man
had sunk down in his seat, a sodden
lump of inanimate human flesh. And
Milky, whose business, in way, was
killing, was Mortified.
The chauffeur wakened, ten minutes
later, to find himself securely tied with
his own towing rope, and lying ex-
tremely close to the edge of death.
Beside him on the ground sat steady
eyed young man with cut lip. The
young man had lighted cigarette, and
was placing it carefully in the unin-
| jured side of his mouth.
| "Just as soon as you are up to It,"
said Milky, 1--WE shall have a little
| talk"
The chauffeur muttered something in
the peasant patois of Karnia.
"Come, comet" Milky observed.
"Speak up. No hiding behind strange
| DIT 7 hi Iok+
That saves your worrying about 1t.
You can clear your mind for action"
Suddenly Milky dropped his hooking
tone. He was in earnest, grim and
deadly earnest.
II have a fancy, my friend" he said,
Ito take that letter of yours on to It's
destination. But what that destination
is, you are to tell me-"
The man on the ground grinned
sardonically. "You know better than
to ask that" he said. 81 will never
tell you"
Milky had thought things out fairly
well, for him, in that ten minutes In
a businesslike fashion he turned the
PROSTATE prisoner on his side, so that
he faced toward the chasm. A late
moon showed it's depth, and the valley
in which the air flowed swiftly. And
having thus faced him toward the next
world, Milky, throwing away his
cigarette because it hurt his lip, put a
stone or two from the roadway behind
his prisoner, and anchored him there.
Then he sat down and waited.
"Any news" he asked, at the end
Of ten minutes unbroken silence.
His prisoner said nothing. He was
thinking, doubtless. Weighing things,
| too-perhaps life against betrayal,
family against separation.
| Milky examined the letter again. 1t
was addressed to border town In
Livonia. But the town lay far behind
them. The address, then, was a false
one. He whistled softly.
Half an hour.
"Come, come" said Milky fiereely.
1--WE are losing time" He looked
fierce, too. His swollen lip did that.
And he was nervous. It occurred to
him that his prisoner, in desperation,
might roll over the edge himself, which
would be most uncomfortable.
But the precipice, and Nikky's fierce
lip, and other things, had got in their
work. The man on the ground stopped
muttering in his patoIs, and turned on
Milky eyes full of hate.
| IT will tell you" he said. "And you
will free me. And after that"
Certainly" Milky replied equally.
"You will follow me to the ends of
the earth-although that will not be
necessary, because don't intend to go
there-and finish me Off" Then, stern
ly: "Now, where does the letter go?
I have a fancy for delivering it my
self"
eff / tell you, what then?"
"This: If you tell me properly and
all goes well, will return and release
you. If do not return, naturally you