The Oakley herald. [volume] (Oakley, Idaho) 1908-1961, 1921-12-09
CHAPTER V.-Continued.

1eHtte TedueTs L wonder II you've
sver tried to climb a telegraph pole
without the contrivances that line
nan buckles upon his feet? If you
haven't. the advice of this amateur is
don't Half q dozen times / shinnied
ap to perhaps the height of a mans
head, only TO come sliding down again
on a run. At last, by series of inch
ngs / cOntrived to get within arms
reach of the lowest crosspiece. Pliers
n hand, | strained for the nearest
wire, progged it, and began to twist 1t
pack and forth to break it.
Not to let me miss any of the thrills,
II was at the precise instant of the
wire-breaking that my straining ears
caught the sound they had been lis
iening for; far-away, drumming rum
Die that seemed to come from nowhere
In particular. Then. out of the same
indefinite circumambience came a
warning that WAS still more unmistak-
able-the iong-drawn blast of loco
motive whistle.
i didn't climb down that pole;
came down like the time-ball on the
dagstaff ia Washington at high noon.
Moreover, | struck the ground run
ming. as one might say. All thoughts
Of tinkering that COMPOUNDED motor
had vanished and my one great object
n life was to get the car on the track
before q worse thing should happen.
1 was doing fairly well with the lifting
and tugging when the enemy hove in
sight less than five hundred yards
away. And that wasn't all, either. At
precisely the same instant, as If 1t had
been timed by the same mechanism
that had brought the freight train,
mere came a wild engine around the
curve In the opposite direction, with
ITS whistle valve held open and making
racket to wake the dead. The be-
reft motor-car riders had found a To-
connective somewhere and were chasing
me-
One mad heave at the stranded gas
aline car. mighty boost that got all
but one wheel of ii in the clear, and
was gone-streaking it like a jack
rabbit for the tall timber-only there
wasn't stick of timber nearer than
the slopes of the backgrounding noun
tains.
One glance over my shoulder as /
fed showed pe what | was in for
that the story was to be Immediately
continued In our next. Both engineers
tried to stop; did stop in time to avert
the greater catastrophe. Three or four
men jumped from the freight and two
from the wild engine TO come tearing
after me. | fancied | could give them
their moneys worth at that game
being In pretty fair training-so /
pitched out to try to turn the hypo-
thetical theory into a condition.
1t was great race. Through one
gap and into another we went, max
Ing figure Fights around the hills and
back again, lodging into new ravines
and out of them into others. circling
among great sandstone boulders that |
look all sorts of weird shapes In the
passing glimpse.
| don't know just how long the chase |
asted, but IL was long enough to give |
ne a very considerable degree of re-
;pe0 for the nerve and persistence of |
hose highly indignant railroad men. |
We must have been miles away from
he scene of the disaster when | final |
Y left them behind and lost them |
When | looked back and found myself |
lone with the solitudes sat down up
IN fat rock to gasp and laugh 1t
lad all been so supremely ridiculous,
md so beautifully in keeping with the
equation had left behind me at
Angels, that | felt sure that now moth
ne less than a verdict of expert alien
SITS would ever serve to convince these
red Desert folk that | was anything
ut an escaped lunatic.
After the breathing spell | kept on
p the valley, heading away from the
citing sun, and feeling certain that,
ooner or later, must come out some
here in the neighborhood of Atropia.
Two hours later | came into a sort
{ an excuse for road. Being pretty
vell winded by the ,tiff climb out of
be canyon ravine, sat down vt the