The Aberdeen weekly. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1878-1933, 1922-03-17
CHAPTER V.-Continued.


>
Gentle reader, L wonder if you've
ever tried to climb a telegraph pole
without the contrivances that a line
man buckles upon his feet? If you
haven't. the advice of this amateur is
don't Half a dozen times l shinnieC
I'D to perhaps the height of a mans
head, only TO come sliding down again
on run. At last. by series of inch
ings I conrived to get within arms
reach Of the lowest crOsSpiece Pliers
in hand, I strained for the nearest
wire, progged it, and began to twist it
back and forth to break it.
Not to let me miss any of the thrills
IT was at the DreciSe instant of the
wire-breaking that my straining ears
caught the sound they had been lis
tening for; far-away, drumming rum
bic that seemed to come from nowhere
IN particular. Then, out of the same
indefinite circUmambience came a
warning mat was still more unmistak-
able-the lOng-drawn blast of a loco
motive whistle
l didn't climb down that pole: I
came down like the time-baH on the
flagstaff in Washington at high noon.
Moreover, I struck the ground run
ming, as one might say All thoughts
of ttnkering that COMPOUNDED motor
had vanished and my one great object
In life was to get the car off the track
before a worse thing should happen
/ was doing fairly well with the lifting
and Juggling 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 il had
been timed by the same mechanism
that had brought the freight train.
here came a wild engine around the
curve in the opposite direction, with
its whistle valve held open and making
d 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
oline 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 a stick of timber nearer than
the slopes of the backgrOunding noun
tains.
one glance over my shoulder as /
fled showed me what l 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 l could give them
their moneys worth at that game
being in pretty fair training-so 1
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 bouIders that
took all sorts of weird shapes in the
passing glimpse.
L don't know just how long the chase
lasted, but it was long 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 away from
the scene of the disaster when | final
" left them behind and lost them.
When I looked back and found myself
alone with the sOlitudes / sat down ND
On flat rock to gasp and laugh. 1t
mad all been so supremacy ridiculous.
and so beautifully in keeping with the |
reputation 1 had left behind me at |
Angels. that I felt sure that now moth |
ng less than a verdict of expert alien |
sts would ever serve to convince these
Red Desert folk that I was anything
,ut an escaped Iunatic.
After the breathing spell I kept on
lp the valley, heading away from the
setting sun, and feeling certain that
sooner or later, l must come out some
where in the neighborhood of Atropia.
Two hours later 1 came into q sort
" an excuse for a road. Being pretty
veil winded by the stiff climb out of
he canyon ravine I sat down at the
oadside TO rest a bit and to decide
which way / should GO to the right
II to the left. Just as / was making |
~ my mind 1 heard patter of feet
nd a dog barked.
A moment later l could see the
east, indistinctly. He had been COM
~ up the road and had stopped at
he sight-or scent-of me. Since a
og argued the proximity of a dog
wning human being. called coaxfng-
y: "Here. Towser-here-com on.
Id fellow-that's a boyl'' and the cur
Dus thing about it is that he did it,
unning up a little way and stopping,