That the artists who illustrate the stories in +The Wide World
Magazine+ are recruited from a specially-qualified staff is, we venture
to think, an obvious fact. Our stories, dealing as they do with
stirring adventures and strange happenings, ranging in their _locale_
from our own shores to the uttermost ends of the earth, could not,
of necessity, receive adequate and accurate pictorial embellishment
save at the hands of experts--men, in fact, who have themselves had
experience of the world in its most varied aspects.
Our illustrators must, indeed, have in them something of the soldier,
the sailor, the hunter, the cowboy, or the explorer to find a place in
our pages. Thus, should we have a story dealing with Patagonia, the
pictures are drawn by an artist who has actually visited that remote
country; when it is necessary to illustrate a scene in the Arctic we
employ an artist to whom the everlasting ice is as familiar as the
streets of London. Should we find it necessary to depict a marine
incident we have recourse to the brush of an artist who has himself
been a sailor. In connection with every story we consult our list of
"specials" for one who has either met with a like experience or is
thoroughly familiar with the country concerned. Thus it will be seen
that +The Wide World+ is able to avail itself of the pictorial services
of an altogether exceptional body of men, many of whom have themselves
met with thrilling adventures. As their experiences will have a
particular interest for our readers, we are glad to be able to give
an account of the most exciting episodes in the lives of some of the
artists whose work has been a prominent feature in this magazine.
* * * * *
Mr. Henry Sandham is a +Wide World+ artist who has had a distinguished
and adventurous career. By birth a Canadian, of British descent, he has
seen much of the world in out-of-the-way places. He has hunted on the
north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and has probably travelled
North America as extensively as any man living, his sketching trips
having taken him from the north of Canada to the south of the United
States, and across country from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He served
his time in the Canadian Volunteer Artillery and saw active service
during the Fenian raid on Canada in 1864. Much to the consternation
of his friends, he once set off on a tour with a notorious desperado
known as "Curley Bill," a "bad man," whose boast it was that he could
not sleep unless he shot a man per month; if troubled with insomnia,
he said, he shot an extra one. Mr. Sandham roughed it for some time
with this fire-eating companion, who tended him with a solicitude only
equalled by that of a mother for her only child; all he could beg,
borrow, or steal he cheerfully placed at the artist's disposal. They
were attended by a dwarf, cousin to "Curley Bill," who, although of
diminutive stature, was quite as desperate a ruffian as his bigger
relative, whom he venerated with an ardour amounting to hero-worship,
and whose dress, manners, and habits he followed as closely as he
could. "Curley No. 2," as he was called, nearly got the party into
serious trouble by wanting to shoot a too-inquisitive miner, and was
only prevented from so doing by "Curley Bill" himself, who took him by
the nape of his neck and shook him as a dog does a rat.
Mr. Sandham has visited the West India Islands, the Azores, Italy,
France, Germany, and Holland. He is a Charter member of the Royal
Canadian Academy, and President Roosevelt accorded him the signal
honour of selecting him to illustrate his book of hunting adventures.
[Illustration: MR. HENRY SANDHAM, WHO, IN ATTEMPTING TO RESCUE A
DROWNING MINER, NEARLY LOST HIS OWN LIFE.
_From a Photo, by Elliott & Fry._]
Among his varied experiences Mr. Sandham has had several narrow escapes
from death, and on one occasion in particular the perilous position in
which he was placed might well have been a creation of the brain of
Edgar Allan Poe rather than an experience from real life.
It was in August, 1882, during a sketching tour in California, that
Mr. Sandham met with this alarming adventure. Accompanied by a brother
artist, he paid a visit to the Little Sailor Mine, which is situated
on a spur of the Sierra Madre Mountains, by the side of the Sacramento
River, some fifty miles from San Francisco. The manager of the mine, in
which hydraulic power is used, invited Mr. Sandham to accompany him on
the occasion of the monthly clean-up of the gold in the tunnels. Always
anxious to add to his store of information, the artist gladly accepted
the invitation, asking at the same time that his friend might join the
party, to which request the manager readily assented.
On the following day Mr. Sandham was on the spot at the appointed time,
eager for what was to him an entirely novel experience. His friend,
however, was late, and he decided to wait for him. As subsequent events
proved, Mr. Sandham owes his life entirely to this trivial incident!
The manager and his staff of assistants, anxious to start the work of
cleaning up without delay, thereupon entered the tunnel, which had
been cut through a high bluff to allow the water a free passage to the
Sacramento River, several thousand feet below the level of the mine.
While waiting for his friend, Mr. Sandham employed his time in making
a sketch of the only "monitor" (delivery-nozzle) then working, and
the man in charge of it sauntered over to watch the progress of his
facile pencil. Before his sketch was finished Mr. Sandham noticed
that the "monitor," which had hitherto been throwing a regular jet of
water at a terrific pressure, by means of which the solid rock was
literally washed away, had become spasmodic in its action. Curious to
learn the reason, he called the miner's attention to the fact. To his
utter astonishment the engineer received his remark with the utmost
consternation, and, throwing up his hands with a gesture of despair,
shrieked:--
"Good heavens! The pipe has burst, and all the boys will be drowned!"
With that he at once dashed off frantically in the direction of the
signal-station to order the water to be turned off at the upper
reservoir, which was situated many hundred feet above the level of the
mine, and was fed from the Sierra Madre Mountains, twenty miles away.
Meanwhile Mr. Sandham realized that with the bursting of the pipe
the tunnel must have been instantly flooded with an immense volume
of water, and that the unfortunate manager and his staff were caught
like rats in a trap. At that very moment they were, without a doubt,
fighting desperately for their lives. With characteristic energy
Mr. Sandham's one desire was to help in the work of rescue, but the
very thought of the men's seemingly hopeless plight left him with a
sickening feeling of impotency. He quickly decided, however, that the
one place where he might be of use was at the outer end of the tunnel,
from which the escaping waters rushed headlong over a precipice,
to fall in a series of frightful leaps some thousands of feet into
the river far below. To reach this spot Mr. Sandham had to climb the
high bluff through which the tunnel was cut, and descend the almost
perpendicular cliff on the other side. The climb itself was no mean
test of a man's agility and nerve, but Mr. Sandham has both, and he was
soon at the summit. As to how he got down the other side Mr. Sandham
says he is to this day not quite clear, but judging from his battered
and bleeding condition and the state of his clothing afterwards he
thinks he must have done so by alternately falling and sliding.
[Illustration: "MONITORS" AT WORK--THE PRESSURE OF THE WATER IS SO
TERRIFIC THAT THE SOLID ROCK IS LITERALLY WASHED AWAY. OUR ILLUSTRATION
IS FROM A DRAWING MADE BY MR. SANDHAM WHILE IN CALIFORNIA.]
Exhausted and breathless, he finally reached the short section of the
flume, immediately under the outlet of the tunnel, leading to the edge
of the precipice. At that instant a dark object shot like a ball from
a cannon out of the cavern into the flume, and was carried along and
swept over the edge of the cliff. Mr. Sandham discovered afterwards
that this was the body of the ill-fated mine-manager. After an interval
of a few seconds another body was fired out of the tunnel, and as it
swept down the flume towards him Mr. Sandham instinctively reached
out his arm to catch it. Next instant his hand was grasped with a
convulsive grip, the man's body swung out to the rush of the water, and
Mr. Sandham knew that on the strength of his arm depended a human life.
At first he thought he could easily rescue the man by hauling him out
of the water, but he speedily found that this was impossible, and that
he was not only fighting for a fellow-creature's life but for his own
as well. His position on the side of the flume afforded him but a
precarious hold, and such was the terrific force of the racing torrent
of water as it threatened to tear the drowning miner from his grasp
that Mr. Sandham realized that he was not only powerless to pull the
man out, but that he himself was in imminent danger of being pulled in.
Once at the mercy of the rushing waters, no power on earth could save
the pair of them from an awful death.
[Illustration: "NEXT INSTANT HIS HAND WAS GRASPED WITH A CONVULSIVE
GRIP."]
It is vastly to Mr. Sandham's credit that even in this dire extremity
he had no thought of releasing his grip of the man's hand in order
to save his own life. At the same time, any such intention on his
part would have been futile, for the frenzied miner, with the fear of
death strong upon him, held him in such a vice-like grip that it was
perfectly clear they must both share the same fate, be it life or death.
The struggle was a grim one, and, putting forth every effort he was
capable of, the artist strove hard to pull the man out of danger. His
frantic endeavours, however, were unavailing, and he felt himself
gradually slipping--drawn irresistibly into the mill-race, which would
sweep him and the hapless miner down the flume and hurl them over the
precipice to meet a frightful death on the rocks far below. Meanwhile
his companion in danger was powerless to help himself, but the agony of
mind he endured was vividly portrayed on his drawn and ghastly face as
he fought with all his strength against the onrush of the current.
Slipping, slipping, inch by inch, until his body overhung the water to
a perilous extent, Mr. Sandham felt instinctively that his strength was
failing him. A few seconds more and the end must come! A cold sweat
broke out on his brow, and his arm felt as though it was being wrenched
from its socket. And then, suddenly, the dreadful strain lessened. The
miner, in his frantic struggles, had managed to grasp the side of the
flume, and, with this added opposition to the force of the water, Mr.
Sandham was able to recover his balance, and at last, with an almost
superhuman effort, he dragged the man from the water.
Their peril did not end here, however, for the force he had exerted
landed the engineer on top of the artist, and in their nervous
excitement the pair clutched each other and rolled over towards the
precipice. The rocks sloped sharply down to the edge, and for the
second time within the space of a few seconds they were in actual
danger of their lives, for the impetus their bodies had acquired
carried them down until their heads were actually hanging over the
chasm. "There was no earthly reason why we should stop there," says Mr.
Sandham, "save that Providence so ordered it." But stop they did, and
in a few minutes they were able to crawl back exhausted to a place of
safety, where they lay unable to move, speak, or even think for some
considerable time. At length the miner sat up and said in a dazed,
monotonous voice, "The boss is gone dead, drowned like a rat in a hole.
Poor beggar, he was to have gone East to-morrow--he had made his pile.
He was going back to his wife and kids. And I should have died with him
if you had not caught hold of me." Then his mind seemed to clear and
he exclaimed, "Say, stranger, what particular kind of fool are you,
anyway? Because, if I had missed my clutch on the flume side when I
got my grip on your arm, we would both be down there, ground up into
tailings. Shake, stranger."
He held out a huge, hairy hand, and Mr. Sandham realized that he had
received a Western miner's heartfelt thanks for the saving of his life.
The water had now been turned off at the reservoir and, the furious
torrent being thus reduced to a mere trickle, all further danger
to those in the mine was over. The miner's convulsive grip and the
terrific strain of the current left Mr. Sandham with a crushed hand and
badly-wrenched shoulder, the effects of which he felt for many months.
Looking back to-day on his adventure Mr. Sandham says that the point
most vividly impressed on his memory is the fact that if he had not
waited for his friend he would have been caught with the others in the
flooding of the mine. Naturally, as the guest of the manager, who had
gone on ahead of the party, he would have been close to him at the
time of the disaster and would undoubtedly have shared his terrible
fate. The rest of the party, being near a manhole, luckily made their
escape--all except the foreman, who had pluckily allowed his men to go
first. His chivalry nearly cost him his life, for he was too late to
save himself and was caught in the flood. It was he whom Mr. Sandham so
pluckily rescued.
* * * * *
Among the artists who have contributed to +The Wide World+, one of the
most familiar names is undoubtedly that of Mr. Alfred Pearse, whose
well-known signature, "A. P.," appeared in the very first number of the
magazine.
Mr. Pearse has met with such an extraordinary number and variety of
accidents and adventures during his career that he says, "There is
no doubt that by all the laws of chance I ought not to be here, but
killing seems to agree with me."
His list of casualties is an extraordinary one. He has been nearly
drowned three times, and has had concussion of the brain more than
once. He has fallen off the tops of omnibuses--on one occasion through
the bus skidding when he was on his way to Cowes to make a sketch of
Queen Alexandra's pet dogs. This resulted in his being paralyzed in
the legs for six months, and one of his most cherished possessions is
a kindly letter of sympathy from Her Majesty, expressing her hopes for
his speedy recovery. Mr. Pearse has been drugged, poisoned, and shot,
has fallen down Beachy Head, and been knocked down and injured by
runaway horses and motor-cars. He has slipped between a moving train
and the platform, has been within an ace of falling over a precipice in
the Alps, has been chased by wild bulls, been blind for two days (the
after-effects of a red spider bite), and had his left shoulder put out
of joint. It is perhaps permissible, therefore, to refer to him as the
most "accidental" man in the world.
Mr. Pearse's alarming list of mishaps, however, does not appear to have
affected him in any way, for he is to-day as full of vigour and spirits
as many a man of half his years and considerably less than half his
accidents.
But there is one particular experience in his life which Mr. Pearse
confesses stands out above all others in sheer intensity of horror and
nerve-racking anguish--an occasion when he was absolutely and entirely
at the mercy of a raving lunatic. There are, it is safe to say, few men
who have been so near death and have survived the ordeal.
[Illustration: MR. ALFRED PEARSE, WHO WAS SUSPENDED OVER THE WELL OF A
DEEP STAIRCASE BY A MADMAN.
_From a Photo. by Talma, Melbourne._]
This alarming adventure dates back to Mr. Pearse's early manhood, and
had its inception in the introduction into his family circle of a
certain individual who, for obvious reasons, we shall refer to in this
narrative as Mr. X----.
Mr. Pearse first made the acquaintance of Mr. X---- owing to the
interest he manifested in the affairs of the church at which his family
attended. Mr. X---- soon began to show a considerable liking for Mr.
Pearse, and the close friendship which ensued led to the latter's
father inviting Mr. X---- to his house, where he soon became a welcome
visitor. He was undoubtedly an interesting personality, although even
at this time he was regarded as being somewhat strange in his manner
and subject to hallucinations. For instance, he once declared that
he had caused the death of his wife, and also that he took a delight
in poisoning his neighbours' dogs and then offering a reward for the
apprehension of the poisoner. These wild statements, however, were
received with pity rather than credence.
Mr. X---- was, according to his own account, an Australian, and in
appearance was gaunt, large-headed, and glaring-eyed, with a scanty
beard and moustache. He stood well over six feet in height, and was
evidently of immense muscular strength.
Although a man of professedly religious inclinations, his actions were
not always in keeping with his words; and Mr. Pearse, when visiting
him at his rooms, would often find him raving like a madman, reviling
himself and those with whom his past life had been spent. On one of
Mr. Pearse's visits he found Mr. X---- almost delirious with laughter,
owing to the fact that his servant was seriously ill after drinking
some of his master's whisky, into which Mr. X----, suspecting that the
man was in the habit of helping himself, had put some laudanum.
On the other hand, for all his evident madness or wickedness, there
was a good side to his character, and Mr. Pearse once saw him knock
down a bully who had insulted an old man; while on another occasion
he interfered to protect a woman from the brutal assault of her
husband. It was simply for this reason that Mr. Pearse endeavoured to
befriend him, although at times his conduct was such as to strain their
relations almost to breaking-point.
Unfortunately, X----'s conduct went from bad to worse, until at
length he gained for himself an unenviable notoriety throughout the
neighbourhood. Mr. Pearse was still stanch to his ill-guided friend and
ready to welcome him in his home, but his father, having regard to his
son's welfare, could not but regard their friendship with considerable
misgivings, and on one of X----'s periodical visits he was reluctantly
compelled to forbid him the house. X---- received the ultimatum in
sullen silence, and with a vindictive scowl on his face he took his
departure.
Mr. Pearse was at the time studying wood-engraving with Messrs. Nicholls
and Aldridge at 13, Paternoster Row, and one afternoon shortly
afterwards he was considerably surprised when Mr. Nicholls came into
the office and said, "Who is that madman sitting on the stairs?"
Naturally enough the young artist's first thoughts were of Mr. X----,
and he immediately ran out on to the landing to investigate. There,
sure enough, seated on the top stair, was the familiar figure of X----,
wearing a "wideawake" hat and Inverness cape.
They were on the top floor of the building, and there was a large
well staircase with a sheer drop of sixty feet straight down to the
hall below. Mr. X----, whose eyes were staring wildly and whose every
feature was working convulsively, dropped his hat and umbrella at
sight of Mr. Pearse, and without a word seized him by the collar of
his coat and the left arm and forced him towards the banisters. So
sudden was the onslaught that the young man had no time even to call
for assistance, but he nevertheless realized his peril and struggled
desperately in the grip of the madman. Mr. Pearse was not only young
but slight of build for his age, and despite his efforts he was quite
powerless in the hands of X----, who, with the almost supernatural
strength of a maniac, lifted him, apparently without effort, clean
over the banisters, and held him suspended in mid-air over the abyss,
with nothing but sixty feet of air between him and the stone floor
below.
[Illustration: "HE HISSED IN A COLD, HARD VOICE, 'I ALWAYS REPAY! I AM
GOING TO DROP YOU, ALFRED; AREN'T YOU AFRAID?'"]
Even in this awful extremity the one idea uppermost in the artist's
mind was as to his best means of escape. Could he clutch hold of
anything before the crash came? Could he swing himself on to the next
landing or cling to his captor? X----, however, was too cunning in his
methods to allow of any such manœuvres, and Mr. Pearse soon realized
that he was absolutely and entirely at the mercy of a raving lunatic,
and that his life depended, small though the chance was, on his own
coolness and resource.
At that critical moment, curiously enough, the young man's chief
concern was for the welfare of a friend of his, also studying
wood-engraving, who had followed him from the office, and who, with
bulging eyes, open mouth, and face ghastly green with fright, was
a horrified witness of the proceedings, pressing back against the
panelled wall as if he wished he might vanish through it. Mr. Pearse
devoutly hoped the young fellow would remain quiet, for the slightest
movement, he felt convinced, would hasten his own end. Fortunately,
however, he was too petrified by fear to be capable of action or speech.
Thoughts of his mother and her anguish at his tragic death next took
possession of Mr. Pearse's mind, but his desire to live and the
necessity for concentrating his thoughts on his terrible plight were
suddenly brought back to him by Mr. X----, who hissed in a cold, hard
voice, "I always repay! I am going to drop you, Alfred; aren't you
afraid?"
Mr. Pearse was firmly convinced that his last hour had come, but
summoning all his fortitude and exerting his will-power to the utmost
he replied without the slightest hesitation, "No; for I know you will
put me back."
The apparent coolness and indifference with which the young artist
replied were without doubt the means of his salvation, for the madman,
with a profound sigh--as though he was sorry, but was obliged to do
so--pulled him over the banisters and dropped him on the landing. Then
he fled, leaving his umbrella and hat behind him.
Mr. Pearse has never from that day seen or heard of his assailant, but
even now the mere thought of the agonizing suspense he endured at his
hands brings with it a shudder of horror.
* * * * *
[Illustration: MR. A. J. GOUGH, WHO NARROWLY ESCAPED DEATH AT THE HANDS
OF AN INFURIATED COWBOY.
_From a Photo. by Geo. Newnes, Ltd._]
Mr. A. J. Gough is another +Wide World+ artist--a Yorkshireman by
birth--who has seen much of the world and taken part in many an
exciting episode in wild and uncivilized places.
His early youth was spent in India, where his father--Mr. J. W. Gough,
the architect--was building a palace for the Maharajah of Durbhungah;
and there he met with his first adventure, when he lost himself in a
tiger-infested jungle, and was only found by the search-party with much
difficulty.
Mr. Gough subsequently went to America, where his experiences included
encounters with alligators and rattlesnakes and disputes with "bad men"
armed with bowie-knives and six-shooters. He has won fame as an amateur
boxer, and is still a member of the Belsize Boxing Club, being also
well known as a swimmer.
Mr. Gough has roughed it in Florida and Texas, and it was in the
latter State that he experienced his most alarming adventure, on which
occasion he was literally within half an inch of death.
It was at the hands of a cowboy known as "Harry" that he nearly lost
his life. He made this man's acquaintance under the following singular
circumstances. Mr. Gough and a friend of his were on their way to
Florida from New York by steamer, and, as funds were low, had perforce
to travel steerage. Among their fellow-passengers was a man whose
appearance clearly denoted the cowboy, and who, although of rough
exterior and manners, was evidently in some respects fastidious in his
tastes.
He took occasion, early in the voyage, to find fault with the drinking
water supplied in the steerage, which was contained in a huge tin tank.
Calling the steward, he remarked:--
"That there tank isn't fit for a dog to drink out of, let alone a man."
"Isn't it, by gum?" replied the steward, sullenly. "Well, you can take
it from me, it's all you'll get this voyage."
"Oh, it is, is it?" growled the cowboy, with an ugly look in his eyes.
"I can tell you this, mister: if you expect me to drink out of that
blamed horse-trough you are blamed well mistaken!"
"You can take it or leave it," replied the steward, with an oath; "and,
if you are so mighty particular, why don't you go first class? You look
like a millionaire, I _must_ say," he added, offensively.
The cowboy was by this time livid with passion, and, fetching his
"Winchester" from the cabin, he, without further reply, started blazing
away at the tank, from which the water was soon spurting in all
directions.
He had obviously completely lost all control of himself, and on an
attempt being made to secure him he got his back against a bulkhead
and threatened to shoot any man who came near him. If looks went for
anything he certainly meant it, and as no one dare approach him he
fairly "held up" the ship, or, at any rate, the steerage.
In this extremity the captain was appealed to. Seeing that he had a
dangerous customer to deal with, and being anxious to avoid bloodshed,
he pretended to side with the cowboy, telling him he was quite right in
what he had done, and promising to see that the steerage passengers
had a better supply of drinking water. Peace being thus restored the
malcontent cooled down, and for the rest of the voyage he was quite
good-natured and jolly, becoming the life and soul of the ship. In
fact, he became so popular that even the captain and mate of the
steamer joined in the merrymaking which took place in the steerage.
Before the voyage was ended, Mr. Gough--then a youngster in his
teens--and Harry the cowboy had established a firm friendship, and this
was renewed some nine months later at Leesburg, in Florida, whither
Mr. Gough had drifted in search of work. Harry was then ranching at
Sumterville, in Texas, and having taken a violent fancy to Mr. Gough he
offered to engage him to help with the horses, which offer, coming as
it did at an opportune moment, was promptly accepted.
The cowboy was a man of about forty, tall and loosely built, with
deep-set eyes, a bristly moustache, and a square, determined jaw. His
huge, knotted limbs gave evidence of immense physical strength, and
his brawny chest might well have served as a model for a sculptor. On
special occasions he wore on his breast a small solid gold model of a
bull, given him as a memento by a lady whose life he had saved, at the
imminent risk of his own, by killing a mad bull that had attacked her,
and he was exceedingly proud of his queer medal.
Albeit an exceedingly rough specimen of the uncut diamond, Harry the
cowboy was, under normal conditions, of an unusually kind and even
tender-hearted disposition, but, as this story will show, he was
subject to sudden outbursts of temper, often for very trifling reasons,
of absolutely appalling ferocity.
His ranch was situated in a lonely spot, and there for some months Mr.
Gough lived a hard and open-air life, enjoying to the full, in the
vigour of his youth and spirits, the arduous round of a rancher's daily
toil. Although now and again his companion gave way to outbursts of
temper, there was nothing to cause him any serious alarm.
Among his various duties, it fell to Mr. Gough's lot to cook the meals.
On one occasion he had prepared a savoury dish of stew, which he and
the cowboy, at the end of a particularly hard day's work, sat down to
enjoy.
The manners of the establishment were, to say the least, of a
rough-and-ready description, and the two hungry diners sat facing each
other on the floor, helping themselves from a large iron pot.
Mr. Gough, as it happened, was the first to finish his repast, and in
the exuberance of a passing fit of hilarity proceeded to execute a _pas
seul_, hopping on each leg alternately round the bare apartment.
In the course of his antics he came quite close to the seated figure of
the cowboy, who had just helped himself to a fresh plate of stew. Then,
stumbling, he lost his balance, and fell heavily to the ground, his
foot crashing fairly into the middle of his friend's plate.
Mr. Gough at once scrambled to his feet and began to apologize in a
jocular way for his accident. "Sorry, old chap," he exclaimed; "I hope
I haven't spoilt your dinner."
But Harry was not at all disposed to take the matter as a joke, and
with a dangerous glare in his eyes he half rose to his feet. "You
clumsy brute!" he shouted, angrily. "Isn't it hard enough to earn a
meal without you spoiling it with your infernal tricks, confound you?"
"Oh, all right," replied Gough; "there's plenty more, so you needn't
get in a rage about it."
The cowboy was now absolutely beyond himself with passion, and with
twitching lips and starting eyes he reached for his "gun." For the
moment, in fact, he was quite demented and "saw red."
Fortunately, however, his revolver was not at his side. If it had been,
Mr. Gough is firmly convinced that he would there and then have been
shot dead.
Deprived of this weapon Harry leapt to his feet. "You don't spoil a
man's dinner for nothing, I can tell you," he roared, "and, by Heaven,
I'll spoil you, if I swing for it!" With that, carried away by an
ungovernable fury of rage, he drew a gleaming bowie-knife from his belt
and rushed at Gough, who was much his inferior in strength, and was,
moreover, unarmed, thus being apparently entirely at his mercy.
To make matters worse, the cowboy was between the young artist and the
door, so that escape that way was impossible. He has never yet been
found wanting in pluck, however, and, although he felt that his last
hour had surely come, he braced himself to meet the attack. A rapid
glance in search of a weapon of defence showed that there was nothing
within reach. His first impulse was to grapple with his assailant, but
the odds were obviously too great, and there was nothing for it but to
await the attack. This, mercifully, was not long in coming, for, with
the unreasoning fury of a maniac, the cowboy made a dash for him with
upraised knife.
A quick lunge, and the knife flashed downward. If ever a man stood
face to face with death, Mr. Gough did during that awful second.
Instinctively he ducked and dodged the blow, the deadly blade whizzing
over his shoulder, missing him so narrowly that it actually grazed his
head!
Mr. Gough was standing against the wall, and as the cowboy had
literally hurled himself at him in the intensity of his passion,
the knife, driven with all the power of Harry's immense strength,
was buried deeply in the woodwork. So firmly was it embedded that
its owner, in his blind fury, experienced considerable difficulty
in extricating it. The consequent lull in the hostilities gave Mr.
Gough his chance, and with a flying leap he dashed through the door
and gained the open air. Once outside the tables were turned, for the
cowboy was no match for the youngster when it came to a test of speed.
[Illustration: "THE KNIFE, DRIVEN WITH ALL THE POWER OF HARRY'S IMMENSE
STRENGTH, WAS BURIED DEEPLY IN THE WOODWORK."]
This he soon realized, and in a few moments he calmed down. As his
brain cleared the frightful possibilities of his murderous outbreak
dawned on him, and with sincere and abject repentance in every look he
exclaimed:--
"Come inside, old chap. I was mad, and I'm sorry I made a fool of
myself. Here's my hand on it. Shake."
Mr. Gough took the proffered hand and there and then made up the
quarrel, but very wisely he decided not to risk the chances of another
similar outburst, and so shortly afterwards he said good-bye to Harry
the cowboy and secured work elsewhere.
(_To be concluded._)
[Illustration: