The Daily Alaska empire., 1932-10-15
CHAPTER 30
WHAT CAUSED THE SMASH

CHAPTER 30.
 WHAT CAUSED THE SMASH
 Nan wept wildly over the body of her husband. For a long mo- ment Jervis was still. Nan search ed feverishly for her own handker- chief, not to dry her tears, but to wipe away the salt water that ran over Jervis' face as Ferdinand worked over him.
 Before she found the handker- chief Jervis muttered something unintellig.ole, opened his eyes, put his hand to his head, and sat up He frowned at Nan, and said
 What are you crying for? Are you hurt?'
 The tears ran down Mans face They ran into the corners of her mouth and tasted salt; they ran down on to her neck and trichled away under her dress. She didn't want them to run down like that, but they just came. And she couldn't find her handkerchief. She complained about it out loud
 T can't find my handkerchief , The last word was split in two by a choking sob. It was a de- vastating depth of misery to be sitting, crying in the dust, with Jervis scowling at her. and not to be able to find a handkerchief.
 'Is that why you are crying?" said Jervis
 T thought you were deadl" said Nan, and as she said it Ferdin- ands hand came over her shoul- der with a clean folded handker- chief.
 Jervis looked at her with gloomy dissatisfaction What was she get ting at. It would be a very good thing for her if he was dead. be- cause she would be free and quite well provided for. It was ridicu- lous to cry about it. But she had been crying. The wet on her cheek was blood. and the wet on his head wasn't. Had she been cry ing all over his hair
 He had got as far as this when Ferdinand addressed him.
 Anything broken?"
 "Broken?" he said. Then he scrambled to his feet. What made that damned wheel come off"
 He stood staring at the car with her three wheels in the air, and her hood hitched up on the para pet. Her last drunken lurch had carried half of it away The stones had gone down into the sea.
 If I hadn't yanked her round bit, she'd have gone too," said Jervis.
 Ferdinand agreed
 That is so," he said soberly. Tt was an extraordinarily bad mo- ment."
 But no one was much the worse Jervis had a scratch on the cheek and lump on the back of his head. Nan had the feeling that she had made a fool of herself had a pair of trousers which would never be the same again. And the car had a broken windshield, buckled fender, and a badly dented hood-negligible in- juries when contrasted with what might have been.
 A tow car came out from Croys- ton, retrieved the missing wheel at the bottom of the cliff. Three dusty and disreputable people, walked back to the Tetterleys to use the telephone and wash.
 Leonard, who was emerging from a henhouse saw them pass. He did not think that they had seen him. He stepped back into the house. Presently he saw Wal ters, the Weare chauffeur, drive past in the big town car, and a little after that again he. watched him return with Jervis, Nan and 
 When the fruit was on the ta- ble after dinner, and the servants had left the room, Nan leaned back in her chair and said.
 Why did the wheel come off?'
 T don't know" said Jervis. Walters swears he went over the wheel nuts with a wrench only yesterday-but then of course he'd be bound to say that"
 Ferdinand nicked LID grape ,