the fatal cherry; and Wau Shun, sitting in the corner of the
gorgeous chair, stiffened into a frightful attitude, and then began
writhing dreadfully. To the heavy, punk-laden atmosphere of the room
was added an odor of burning flesh.
Quong Lung rose from his seat and crossed the room to where his
victim was being electrocuted. “Ho, ho, ho!” he laughed softly;
“excellent Jim, most excellent Jim!”
As he watched the grim murder enacting before him, he saw, reflected
in the mirror behind the chair of doom, the door that led into the
room slowly open, and James Ray and a detective well known to Quong
Lung entered swiftly.
“Throw up your hands, Quong Lung!” commanded the officer, as he
covered the Chinaman with his pistol.
Taken in the midst of his crime, Quong Lung started and, backing
against the fatal chair, he fell on the seat beside his victim, with
a yell, as the tremendous current shot through him, killing him
instantly.
“Turn off the current, Ray. For God’s sake, be quick!” shouted the
officer, as the bodies writhed and twisted on the chair of death.
“Yes, yes,” came the leisurely reply, as Ray took the tuberose from
the flower-stand; “there will be plenty of time after I have removed
this sweet tenderling from this horrible atmosphere.”
A DOUBLE SHOT
By Stewart Edward White
Pat McCann came up from the plains into the hills in a bad humor
with himself and the world. He had tried to be a cow-puncher and had
been promptly bucked off; he had tackled the cooking problem and
only escaped mobbing by resigning his job; now he had dragged his
little, squab form, with its hanging arms, up into the hills to try
mining. He applied to the first camp he came to. King, the foreman,
gave him a job.
Early the next morning he and another man walked down the gulch
through the sarvis bushes for half a mile, turned abruptly to the
right, climbed the uneven length of a zigzag trail, and at last
halted near the top of a ridge. The pine trees, slim and tall, grew
out of the unevenly carpeted ground, through which cropped irregular
slices of a red-brown, crumbling rock. At the very crest was a
dark-gray “dike” of quartzite, standing up steep and castellated for
a height of thirty feet or more. This was the “hanging wall” of the
prospective mine. Down through the trees were glimpses of vast,
breathless descents to other ridges and other pines far below. Over
the dike was nothing but the blue sky.
The two men had stopped within a hundred feet of the top. The old
hand went over to a rough lean-to of small trees covering a rude
forge, from beneath which he drew several steel drills of various
lengths and a sledge-hammer, which he carried to a scar in the face
of a huge outcropping rock. After dumping these he returned and got
a can of water and a long T-shaped implement of iron. The two men
then set to work.
McCann held firmly while the other struck. After each blow he would
half-turn the drill. When a dozen strokes had been given, he poured
a little water in the hole, and thrust the drill through a bit of
sacking to keep it from splashing. The other man jammed his hat down
closely over his forehead and struck fiercely, alternately breathing
in and grunting in rhythmical succession. When the hole became
clogged with fine, gray mud, McCann carefully spooned it out with
the T-shaped instrument, wiping the latter each time on his
trousers. While he did this his companion leaned on his sledge or
threw chunks of rock, with wonderful accuracy, at the squirrels that
ran continually back and forth on the ridge. As the hole grew
deeper, longer drills were used, until at last the longest of all
left barely enough above the surface of the rock to afford a
hand-hold. With that the miner expressed himself satisfied. He then
brought three cylindrical packages wrapped in greasy paper.
“What’s them?” McCann inquired.
The miner grunted contemptuously.
“Hercules powder,” he replied. He pronounced the proper name in two
syllables.
With a sharp knife he cut these into lengths of about three inches
each, and dropped them one by one into the hole in the rock. He then
rammed them home with a hickory ramrod, just as all old miners will
insist on doing. Because of this a large percentage of old miners
have no fore and middle fingers on their right hands. The last piece
he split, inserted in the crack a bit of fuse, on the end of which
was a copper cap, dropped it in, and then carefully chinked-in with
the wet grit which had been spooned out of the hole.
“Mosey for cover, Irish!” he said, and touched it off.
From behind his tree McCann saw the sputtering fuse disappear. The
next instant the rock seemed to bulge, splitting in radiation as it
did so, and then the smoke belched forth in a canopy, filled with
fragments of quartz. Following the miner, he found a jagged opening
in the rock. Then they sharpened their drills at the forge and went
at it again. By night they had fired two more blasts, and had made a
start toward a shaft. After the third, Bob, the miner, said,
glancing at the West: “That’ll do, Irish.”
They _caçhed_ the tools, caught up the water-bucket, and swung
rapidly down the trail. Bob was ahead, slouching along with the
mountaineer’s peculiar gait, which seems so lazy, and yet which gets
over the ground so fast. In a very few moments he reached the gulch
below, plunging from the bare, rock-strewn hillside under the pines
to the lush grasses and cool saplings of the cañon bed, as from a
desert to a garden. He looked around to say something. McCann was
gone.
“Well, I’m damned!” he ejaculated, and yelled loudly.
After a moment’s pause, from far down the opposite slope came a
faint whoop. Bob sat down on a fallen tree, and waited
philosophically, shouting at intervals. In a little while the
Irishman came charging frantically up the gulch, tearing along
through the vines and bushes at full speed, so terrified that he
passed within ten feet of Bob without seeing him. The latter watched
him surge by with an odd little twinkle in his eye. Then suddenly he
shouted again. Pat slowed up, looked about for a moment vacantly,
and then his rugged Hibernian face broke into a multitude of jolly
wrinkles.
“Arrah, it’s yerself, darlin,” he said; “Oi thought it’s Pat McCann
as is goin’ t’ slape wid th’ mountain lines this night!”
“You stick t’ me,” was Bob’s only comment.
After a short climb the men reached the camp on a knoll overlooking
two confluent gulches. There was the superintendent’s office, the
cook-house, the bunkhouse, the blacksmith’s shop, the stables, and
the corral--all of logs. Supper was served at sundown. The men filed
in, took off their coats, and sat down without a word. As each one
finished eating, he arose, put on his coat again, and sauntered
outside, filling his pipe as he went. Finally the whole gang was
gathered at the bunk-house, smoking, telling laconic stories, or
playing cribbage--the great American game in the mountains.
As the last comer, Pat was told to water the horses. He went boldly
into the corral with a rope, and was kicked flat. The boys
straightened him out, and, after he had regained his breath, gave
two of the horses’ halters into his hands. Except in the main cañons
of the Black Hills there is no surface water, the creeks all running
down along the bed-rock. As a consequence, wells are necessary even
in the upper hills. Pat first let a horse get loose, then he lost
the bucket down the well, then he fell in himself in trying to fish
it out. The boys fished him out with some interest. So manifestly
inadequate an individual it had not been their fortune to meet
before, and they looked on him as a curiosity. On the spot they
adopted Pat McCann much as they would have adopted a stray kitten or
puppy, and doubtless in somewhat the same amused, tolerant state of
mind.
The next morning Bob and Pat cleared away the _débris_ of the three
blasts, wrenching off the broken, adhering bits with a pick, and
shoveling them out. King came up with an axe-gang and built a rough,
square breastwork of logs down the hill, to catch the quartz as in a
bin. They also squared a number of timbers, and tongued the ends.
These were to timber the shaft.
All this interested the little Irishman. He recovered his spirits,
and his Old World blarney came back to him. The clear, fresh air of
the hills, the abundant food, the hard work, the sound sleep, the
reaction against the taciturnity of the men, and the calm grandeur
of the mountains, filled him with animal spirits. He imagined he had
found his vocation at last. He wanted to do everything. In time he
learned to strike with the sledge, although it was only after long
practice on a stake that he could induce any one to “hold” for him;
he sharpened drills--after a fashion; he even helped in the
timbering-up. The only thing lacking was the “shooting” of the
charges. He had an ambition to touch the thing off. This King
roughly forbade.
“That fly-away fool to risk his neck that way?” he said; “I guess
not! He don’t know enough now to make his head ache. When I want a
wild Irishman too dead to skin, I’ll let you know. I don’t want that
man to have the first thing to do with the powder. Understand that!”
What King said went in that camp. Besides, the men knew him to be in
the right. Pat was the unluckiest man alive, and the most awkward.
He was sure to be in any trouble there was about--in fact, as Jack
Williams said, he was a sort of lightning-rod for the whole camp in
the way of trouble; every one else was sure of exemption, if there
was only one man’s share of difficulty dealt out. So McCann pleaded
in vain.
This went to his heart. He would have given his black-thorn
shillalah from Dublin to have been looked upon as a full-fledged
miner. He used to put on all the airs of one in Sweetwater when he
went down there once a week, swaggering about in copper-riveted
jeans, with his hat on one side, conversing learnedly though vaguely
on “blow-outs,” “horses,” “foot-walls,” and other technicalities,
hauling out of his pockets yellow-flecked bits of quartz--in short,
“putting on dog” to an amazing extent. But as he turned past the
stamp-mill of the Great Snake and began to scale the heart-breaking
trail that led to the top of the ridge, his crest began to fall. As
he followed the narrow, level summit for the three miles of its
length, standing as it were in the very blueness of the air, his
spirits began to evaporate. When he took the shorter and gentler
descent to the camp, the old conviction had returned with sickening
force. He was not a miner. He had never “shot.” He used all his
persuasive powers in vain. For one thing, the men were afraid to
disobey King. For another, they liked Pat, and, having a firm faith
in his “hoodoo,” were convinced that his “shooting” and sudden death
would be synonymous terms. So Pat abandoned persuasion and tried
craft.
The old shaft on which he and Bob had first begun work had been
carried down fifty feet. Appropriate cross-cuts and drifts had been
made to exploit the lead. It was now abandoned. Bob and Pat were put
to work at another spot in the same lead a little farther along the
ridge. The place marked out for the first blast was between two huge
bowlders, or rather between the two rounded cheeks of one bowlder.
The passage between them was perhaps five or six feet wide. One end
led out in a gradual descent to the broad, open park of the ridge
top, the other dropped off abruptly three or four feet to another
level place. Around the corner of the first the miners kept their
tools and forge; down the second they planned to drop when the blast
was fired; and there they had built a little fire, it being, on that
particular day, in the lee of the rock.
The hole had been all drilled before Bob discovered that he had
forgotten to bring any powder; so, cursing, he started down the
passage to get some from the sheet-iron powder-house in the draw.
Hardly was he out of sight before McCann, chuckling softly to
himself, pulled from under a shelving bit of rock the missing
powder. With this he loaded the hole; he arranged the fuse, and then
dropped down the ledge to get a brand from the fire. It was nearly
out, so it took a few moments to start a torch. However, he was in
no hurry, as it was some little distance to the powder-house, and
Bob could not possibly return inside of half an hour. At last he
coaxed a bit of pine into a glow, and turned to climb back. A
startling sight met his eyes.
When Bob went to get the powder he stopped at the forge for the
water-pail. As he stooped to pick it up, something struck him a
sudden blow in the thigh that knocked him over and set the blood
flowing--he said afterward he thought the bone was broken. When he
could see, he looked about to find what had hit him, and discovered
not ten feet away the long, tawny body of a puma.
The great cat lay watching him through half-shut eyes, lazily
switching its tail back and forth. From the depths of its throat
came a deep rumbling purr. He tried to rise, but could not. Then he
turned over on his left side and started to crawl painfully through
the passageway of the rocks. The beast opened its eyes and followed
stealthily, step after step, still switching its tail, and still
purring. It was in a sportive mood, and played with its prey, as a
cat plays with a mouse. Inch by inch the man pulled himself along,
leaving a trail of blood. At last, within a few feet of the ledge,
he stopped; he could go no further. The puma, too, paused.
At this moment Pat McCann, a blazing pine-brand in his hand, looked
over the ledge. Bob saw him and faintly warned him back. The puma
saw him too. The purring ceased, and the lithe muscles tightened
under the skin. The game was over. The animal was preparing to make
its spring.
It did not occur to the little Irishman’s fighting soul to retreat.
His comical features stiffened; his little blue eyes fairly snapped.
Slowly he drew himself up on the ledge, keeping his eye fixed on the
puma, until he stood erect, then he shifted his brand mechanically
into his left hand, and drew his sheath-knife. He did not know that
the fire was his best weapon, and Bob was too weak to tell him. The
brand, held point downward, began to blaze. The puma’s great eyes
shifted uneasily at this, and its muscles relaxed. It was evidently
discomposed. Pat did not await the attack, but stepped forward,
holding his knife firmly.
When within a few feet of the animal, Pat hesitated and stopped. His
nerve was still unshaken, but he did not know how to begin. The puma
still sniffed uneasily at the blaze, but had recovered from its
first fear, and was again gathering its powers for a spring. For a
moment there was absolute silence, and Pat heard through the still
air the sharp chatter of a squirrel and the clank of the ore-team’s
whiffle-trees from the ore road far below. While he stood thus
uncertain, the fire from the pine, having run up along the torch,
began to burn Pat’s fingers. Without moving his head or shifting his
eyes, he dropped it gently--plumb upon the fuse he had so carefully
arranged a few moments before. Then he took a step backward to avoid
the smoke. There was a splutter and a flash, then a sudden roar. The
man and the beast were hurled violently in opposite directions, and
a volcano of rock shot high in the air and showered down again.
The axe-gang found the puma very dead and Pat very hard to revive.
The whisky-and-water method brought him around at last. He looked
hazily about him in evident bewilderment until his eye caught sight
of the dead animal, and then his face lighted up with eager joy.
“Glory to God, Oi’m a miner!” he shouted. “Oi’ve ‘shot’ at last!”
TEN THOUSAND YEARS IN ICE
By Robert Duncan Milne
While lounging listlessly along the sea-wall one afternoon about the
beginning of August last--the eighth, I think it was--enjoying the
sunshine and inhaling the sea-breeze, my attention was attracted to
an unusual bustle and commotion on the quay of Section Two. I could
see from where I was that considerable exertions were being made to
transfer some heavy object from a vessel moored alongside the quay
to the quay itself. As I got nearer I discovered by the name on the
stern that the vessel was the whaling-bark _Marion_, and that the
object which the crew, assisted by a number of longshoremen, were
making such efforts to get on shore was an immense rectangular
block, measuring some nine feet in length by about four in breadth
and thickness. Had it been a block of granite, the men could not
have worked harder, prying it with rollers and levers along a
gangway made of a dozen or so of stout planks laid abreast from the
ship’s deck to the quay. As, however, this object, whatever it was,
was swathed and enveloped with a plentiful supply of sacking, I
could form no opinion as to its nature.
While standing abstractedly by, looking on and speculating as to
what this very heavy object might be, and wondering what it could be
doing aboard a whaler, I was tapped gently on the shoulder by
somebody, and, looking round, my eyes rested on a heavily bearded
and bronzed individual in pea-jacket and rough trousers, with a
laughing eye, who said, cheerily: “What! don’t you know me?”
I was certain I had never seen the man before, though something in
the voice sounded familiar. My doubts, however, were speedily set at
rest by this individual exclaiming: “Don’t you recollect Joe
Burnham? Has a year made such a difference? If so, I’m glad of it.
You couldn’t have paid me a better compliment.”
“Can it be possible?” I said, in surprise, as I grasped his hand;
“why, Joe, who would have expected to meet you coming off a whaler?
And with a heavy beard, too!”
“Why, I thought you knew all about it,” he returned, with equal
surprise; “just wait a minute,” he added, as he turned to give some
directions to the men who had now got the heavy object safe on
shore, and were proceeding to hoist it upon a dray.
While he was thus engaged, I recalled some circumstances which
served to explain the unexpected and original appearance of my
friend.
Joe Burnham, the son of the well-known millionaire mining-man, had,
I knew, been recommended to go abroad for change of air about a year
before, owing to failing health arising from too intense application
to study. This, however, was all I knew, and I had no idea that he
had concluded to take his change of air aboard a whaler. But knowing
his taste for scientific pursuits of any and every character, I can
not say that I was very much surprised to meet him again as I had
just done. At any rate, the trip had certainly been most beneficial,
as he had changed from a sickly and rather delicate student to a
hale, hearty, and robust man.
“Yes,” he remarked, as he came back from the dray, which was now
moving slowly off, the four sturdy horses which drew it evidently
straining under the weight with which it was loaded, “my doctor
prescribed absolute freedom from brain-work of any kind. He shook
his head when I suggested Europe. There was too much, he said, to be
seen in Asia, or, in fact, in any other quarter of the globe, to
insure the perfect repose he thought necessary. Even a prolonged
yachting excursion did not meet his views. That, he said, would be
worse than anything else. Its very monotony and loneliness would
drive me to cogitation. The sea part of it, he admitted, was
capital. If a sea voyage could be combined with excitement and
something to do--but would I work? Then some lucky inspiration
seemed to flash across my mind, and I asked him if there were any
objections to a whaling trip. ‘The very thing,’ he said; ‘you have
plenty of money and can go more as a passenger than as a sailor. You
won’t have much time to study on board _that_ kind of a vessel, and
I’ll risk all the chances you get to indulge in the study of the
flora and fauna of the Arctic.’ And now you see how it is that I
happen to be disembarking at the present moment from the stanch bark
_Marion_.”
“You seem to have got plenty of baggage, anyhow,” I returned,
motioning toward the dray, which was now fast retreating in the
direction of the city; “your share of the blubber, perhaps,” I
added, banteringly; “or maybe specimens of the flora and fauna of
the Arctic, which your doctor cautioned you against.”
“Partly right and partly wrong,” said Burnham, sententiously and
somewhat seriously; “you may have got nearer the truth about that
queer parcel than you think. But this is no time or place to speak
about it. Come up to the house to-morrow forenoon, if you have time,
and I will show you something that will astonish you. I particularly
wish you to come,” he added, with emphasis; “you will be amply
repaid for doing so by what you will see. Meantime, I have something
more to arrange on board this vessel.” So saying, he crossed the
gangway and disappeared.
Next morning about ten, in accordance with my friend’s invitation, I
ascended the steps of the Burnham mansion, rang the bell, and sent
in my card. I was evidently expected, as the servant requested me to
follow him, and led the way downstairs. There, in a small court-yard
sacred to himself, and in which, together with two apartments
opening thereon, my friend conducted his experiments, I found him in
his shirt-sleeves, superintending the disposition of the ponderous
mass which had excited my curiosity the day before on the sea-wall.
The workmen had just succeeded in hoisting it on to a strong and
massive trestle-work, some three feet from the ground, and upon this
the nondescript, oblong package, swathed with sacking and bound with
ropes, now rested.
“There!” said Burnham, as he settled with the men and turned the key
of the door leading into the ordinary court-yard of the house; “the
most laborious part of the job is over. It was no easy matter
getting the package up here. But now, as publicity at this stage
must on every consideration be avoided, I must ask you to stand
ready to lend me a hand when necessary. Better leave your coat in
the laboratory or in the studio--which you please--you can suit
yourself.”
The “laboratory” and the “studio” were the respective names of the
two rooms opening onto the court-yard where we were now standing,
which was itself separated, as I have said, from the main court-yard
of the building by a tolerably high wall, opposite which were the
entrances and windows of the rooms aforesaid, which had been
originally intended for outhouses of some sort. The other two sides
of this little court-yard were blind-walls of the house itself.
Certainly, if secrecy were the requisite aimed at in my friend’s
enterprise, whatever it might be, a happier place could not have
been chosen. The “laboratory” and the “studio,” while each opened on
the court, and while there was also intercommunication between the
rooms, differed greatly in interior arrangement, as well as in the
uses to which they were put. The laboratory was fitted up with
benches, tables, and shelves, littered with chemical, optical,
electrical, and photographic apparatus, zoölogical and botanical
specimens, _et hoc genus omne_; a perfect scientific chaos, in
short, without a semblance of law and order. The studio, on the
other hand, was richly and luxuriously furnished and kept in
scrupulous order by Burnham’s own valet, who, I noticed, however,
was not there at this time.