The Bottineau courant., 1922-01-19
CHAPTER V.-continued.

SffNF In Fs-SCtkitSO.
. 3
Gentle reader | wonder If you've
ever tried to climb, telegraph pole
without the contrivances that line
man buckles upon his feet? If you
haven't, the advice of this amateur is
don't. Half dozen times | shinnied
up to perhaps the height of a mans
mead, only to come sliding down again
on run. At last, by series of inch
1ngs | contrfved to get within arms
reach of the lowest crosspiece. Pliers
In hand, | strained for the nearest
wire, progged it, and began to twist 1t
back and forth to break it.
Not to let me miss any of the thrills.
II was a, the nrecise instant of the
Wlre-breaking that my straining ears
caught the sound they had been lis
tening for; far-away, drumming rum
Die that seemed to come from nowhere
In particular. Then out of the same
indefinite circumambience came
warning that was still more unmistak
abie-the long-drawn blast of a loco
motive whistle.
L didn't climb down that pole:
came down like the time-ball on the
hagstaf in Washington at high noon.
moreover, 1 struck the ground run
ming, as one might say. All thoughts
or tinkerfng that confounded motor
had vanished and my one great object
In life was to get the car off the track
before worse thing should happen.
! was doing fairly well with the lifting
anu tugging when the enemy hove in
sight less than FIVE hundred wards
away. And that wasn't all, either, At
precisely the same instant, as if it had
been timed by the same mechanism
that had brought the freight train,
here came wild engine around the
: curve in the opposite direction, with
Its whistle valve held open and making
s a racket to wake the dead. The be-
reft motor-car riders had found ii To-
comotive somewhere and were chasing
me. .H
One mad heave at the stranded gas
Oilne car, mighty boost that got all
but one wheel of it in the clear. and
- was gone-streaking it like lack
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 7
He'd showed me what | was In for :.
that the story was to be immediately
continued In our next. Both engineers
tried to stop; did stop IL 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. L fancied could give them
their moneys worth at that game
being in pretty fair training-so I
pitched out to try to turn the hypo-
theticai theory Into a condition.
1t was great race. Through one
gap and into another We went. max
Ing figure eights around the hills and
back again, lodging into new ravines
and out Of them into others, circline
among great sandstone boulders that
took all sorts of weird shapes In the
passing glimpse. >-
i ! don't know just how long the chase
lasted, but II was Ion., enough to give
me very considerable degree of re-
spect for the nerve and persistence of
those highly indignant railroad men.
We must have been miles aEay from
the scene Of the disaster when final
liz left them behind and lost them
When looked back and found ,nvseIf
alone with the solitudes sat down nm
on a fiat rock to gasp and laugh. #
had all been 20 supremeiy ridiculous
and SO beautifully in keeping with the
reputation had left behind me at
Angels. that / felt sure that now moth
Ing less than verdict of expert alien
lists Konld ever serve To convince these
Red Desert folk that 7 was anything
but mn escaped Iunatic. -.
After the breathing spell I Kent ON
Nh the valley, heading AWAY from tha
setting sun. and feeling certain that
.soOaer or later, r must come OUT some.
where Id The neighborhood of Atronia
Ko hours later + came Into sort
~ ~ excuse Tor road. Being pretty
seiI Hinded by fhe sfir climb out of
1he cAnyon r4yine. sat down III tl,e
f0nllss1e ID resi- i bit and I'd decffta
NH why I should gO, to the rfrht
46 ti,e left. Just III / was mag
szIy = mind I heard y pafter W feet
a d. barked
n0G,esnt Iater I couid see IN.
ilsdlstinetiy III had ben com