When Swift boarded the Western express he walked through, starting from
the last car, to see if any rival reporters happened to be there for the
same purpose. He scanned the backs of the heads of the passengers first,
and then looked keenly into each man's face as he passed. He had, in
common with all newspaper men, the detective instinct. Who knew what
eminent defaulter or renowned cracksman was fleeing the city in dark
disguise? However, he observed no familiar or suspicious character until
he entered the smoking car.
He did not go through, for, although a great smoker, he took no pleasure
in indulging in his favorite vice in the air of a democratic smoking
car. What fastidious smoker does? He was content to let his eyes wander
up and down the aisle. He was about to turn, when his gaze fell upon the
back of a dingy linen duster, which was surmounted by a large, faded,
black sombrero. The man under these garments had the upper part of his
face hidden beneath the broad flap of his hat, while the under part of
his face was entirely submerged in a large pamphlet. The man had the air
of extreme retirement. Something about the dinginess of the felt hat
seemed familiar to Swift. But, no; it could not be. To make sure, the
new editor of the _Planet_ approached, and bent behind the man. The
gentleman was ignorant of the attention he attracted, and did not stir.
He seemed to be engrossed in one of Mr. Atkinson's incomprehensible
financial reports. Swift caught sight of the travellers face, started
back in amazement, and said:
"Excuse me, sir: is this seat engaged?" and without further ceremony sat
down beside the recondite stranger, who dropped his paper and stared at
Swift in return.
"Great Caesar!" blurted out Swift. "How the D--epartment did you come
here?"
"On the five fifty-eight elevated," replied the man, imperturbably.
"I--I didn't know you were sent, too." Swift's heart burned within him
at the fancied slight.
"I wasn't," answered Mr. Statis Ticks, laconically and wearily.
"Where the dickens are you going, then?" asked Swift, warmly.
"To Russell, of course."
"How on earth did you get off?"
"I didn't, young man. I skipped." This exceptional occasion doubtless
accounted for the only bit of slang that was ever heard to fall from
those dry lips. "You see," proceeded Mr. Ticks drearily, "the
circumstance is a little unusual. I have read of nothing similar in the
casualty reports. I thought it best for my reputation to make my own
personal observations and figures on the spot."
"But your position?" asked Swift in surprise.
Mr. Statis Ticks raised his head proudly.
"If the _Planet_ can get on without me, let it!"
"But your family?" continued Swift, somewhat dazed. Who had suspected
this animated reference library of such enterprise?
"I sent messenger number thirty-seven to them," he answered with a sigh,
as if he were bored by such trifles.
Then considering this topic exhausted, Mr. Ticks took out his notebook
and looked absently out of the window; now and then he jotted down a few
abstruse figures. He was engrossed in calculating the farm acreage
adjacent to the railroad track between New York and Albany.
When they drew nearer to the region of the catastrophe the papers gave
more lurid accounts of it. These were purchased and read with avidity by
those on board the flying express. Groups centred in the cars talked
only of one thing. Reporters now joined the train at each prominent
city.
As the train approached the stricken territory it became crammed to
suffocation. It crept at a funeral pace. People fought at each station
for seats. The train split into sections on account of the added cars,
filled with mourners, with rescuers, with sight-seers, with villains.
Swift now took to himself a certain measure of authority. Was he not the
experienced representative of the greatest daily in America? But no one
noticed Mr. Statis Ticks, who silently blinked at the excited crowds and
then jotted down his estimates of them.
On the afternoon of the fourth day Swift bounded from the front platform
of the baggage car, the first to leave the train, and looked with a
professional eye about him. The scene that met his quick gaze was
unprecedented. Clamoring, gesticulating, shrieking, crying men and women
were rushing here and there in frenzy. Here was a group of women wailing
for their husbands, imprisoned or dead--and who knew which?--within that
awful circle. There a man looked, vacantly, with trembling lips, from
group to group, hunting for the wife snatched from him. Here was a rude
fellow peddling half a bushel of potatoes from a rickety farm wagon.
There a woman, hungry and desperate, was aimlessly dragging an orphan
child about. Yonder a confidence man was set upon and beaten by
infuriated victims. In the midst of a jostling, eager, credulous mob was
a man who fancied he had some real news to tell.
Now and then, as if by mutual consent, these people lifted up their
heads towards the Great Buzzard mountains, toward Russell, the city of
their despair, and clenched their fists and uttered an exasperated
groan. Agents of the Red Cross Society and of the Law and Order League
had already erected their tents, and were doing all they could to
restrain the lawlessness and relieve the discomforts of the mob. Swift
critically watched these seething thousands, who had come upon the spot
from motives of sorrow, curiosity, gain, and plunder, all miserable,
poorly housed and scantily fed. The reporter's inquisitiveness was well
ahead of his human sympathy up to this point.
Within these few days the border line about the afflicted city had
become an improvised camp, that extended for miles and miles. It was
enforced here by a railroad track, there by a village, until, having
completed the gigantic circle, it met again. Thousands were flowing in
each hour. They came from all points of the compass, like flocks of
angels and of devils. As yet the military was not at hand, and the
little law that existed was not of the gospel, but of brute force and
adroitness.
Swift, having sent off his dispatch at the improvised office, and having
forgotten his companion, whom he expected to be a nuisance on his hands,
retraced his steps and hurried to the dead line, where it impinged on
the railroad track. Here was the centre of the maddest rush. Here men
groaned and cursed and wept aloud. Swift pushed his way through until he
reached that portion of the track that defied further passage. A cord
had been stretched there to keep the crowds back. Upon showing his badge
he was received with respect.
"Take keer, boss," said the huge policeman, whose sole duty up to this
time had been to drive the spikes into the sleepers. "I tried it
yesterday. They just pulled me out. I got the d--d shakes yet." With a
grave smile Swift ducked under the rope and looked before him. The
solitary, motionless, blasted prairie stretched out, relieved only by
the outlines of the Buzzard mountains. Where once the tops of towers,
grain elevators and steeples were to be seen on the horizon, there was a
cloud. A dense, strange, ominous mist overhung the stricken city.
This cloud was of a yellowish color that recalled to Swift the dreadful
yellow day of '72. It reached nearly to the summit of the great Buzzard
mountain. Within five miles of the spot on which he stood this
phenomenon became more and more attenuated until it disappeared in dull
transparency. What did that cloud contain? What horrors did it hide? Of
what was its nature? What was the secret of its deadly influence? No
American catastrophe had impressed the reporter so much as the sight of
this veil, hiding the unattainable city. Curse this maledict, deadly
vapor! It paralyzed his inventiveness. It baffled his imagination. For
the first time in his reportorial career Swift was stunned and without
resource.
Now it was said that not a breath of air had stirred over the polluted
area since the morning of the loss of Russell.
As the news editor looked down the tracks he saw that the tracks, which
were torn up and twisted beneath him, within a hundred feet, disappeared
utterly from view. The wooden ties were blackened into charcoal in their
places, but the iron rails had evaporated. It was the same with the
telegraph wires. At a certain point they stopped and were gone. The
poles, tottering and scorched and bare, looked like a procession of
naked ghosts, undressed for livelier mockery. Before him the trees, the
shrubs, the grain, the grasses--in fine, all vegetation had been smitten
unto death.
The face of the earth was black and crumbling. It looked as if the roots
of this unconscious vegetable life had been suddenly touched by volcanic
fires and had died from the ground up. There was not a vestige of life
as far as the eye could see. Had a fire swept the land? But no! No smoke
had been hitherto visible, unless this inexplicable cloud were smoke.
And yet, to Swift's practiced eye, there were evidences of a violent, a
sudden, a consuming heat. The men in line behind Swift stood
respectfully back while he observed this unique scene. He noticed a
white mile-post close at hand. It was inscribed, "Russell, 20 m."
"Only twenty miles to Russell! and no one there yet! What a field for
the news editor of the greatest paper in the land! The competitors were
keen. The chances were even, the honor great, and no favors asked. As he
stood for a moment, lost in thought over the apparent hopelessness of
the undertaking, and almost wishing he had not sent so confident a
telegram to his chief, he felt a hand upon his arm.
"I have found one," said a slow voice.
"Have you? What?" asked Swift, with careless interest. He recognized the
aspirated tones of Mr. Ticks.
"I have calculated this thing over. There are between six and seven
thousand on the spot. Five hundred reporters are here, and more expected
by every train. There is no food, no bed, no roof for us here. This
place has been completely done up. It is exhausted. To get facts we must
move on."
"Jove, you're right, old man!"
Mr. Ticks acknowledged the compliment with a slight motion of his hand.
"Yes, I have just purchased the only team to be had, for four hundred
dollars."
Swift glanced enviously at his autumnal colleague, who had already
outdone him in enterprise.
"Cyclones and tornadoes in this part of the country," proceeded Mr.
Ticks sententiously, "travel to the northeast. We will go to the north.
If there are any remains they are to be found there," Mr. Ticks had, it
would seem, embraced the tornado theory.
"We will go immediately!" exclaimed Swift.
"Hold!" cried the man of figures quietly, "I wish to test this
phenomenon. Wait for me here!"
Before Swift could utter a protest or arrest his colleague's arm, the
philosopher started up the vacant track. No one dared to follow him. The
crowd were too much stunned at his audacity. Had they not dragged a
dozen adventurers back from the same mad enterprise? Men shuddered
before this unknown fate that stretched out its relentless arms so far
and no further. A cocked pistol would have been more comfortable.
But Mr. Ticks walked on slowly, unconsciously, as if in a revery. He put
his hands out as if to feel the air. He put his tongue out as if to
taste it. He had not gone forty feet when he was observed to tremble
violently. Those on the dead line united with Swift in shrieking "Come
back!" The experimenting member of the _Planet_ staff only shook his
head. He was not twenty yards away when he stopped abruptly. He put his
hands to his head and heart, and struggled against the unseen force. It
beat upon him: but he steadied his legs the firmer and met the shock. It
smote at him, but he wearily smiled in return. He even made a motion as
if for his notebook. But such temerity was too much for the occult
fluid to suffer. It breathed upon him and felled him to the ground. As
he dropped he rested for a moment spasmodically upon one knee, and
peered into the air as if he were penetrating the secret of this baleful
agent. Then he fell back insensible.
Half an hour afterwards the newspaper man came to. Swift was bending
over him.
"We rushed you out. You'll pull through all right, old man," said his
colleague cheerily.
"Did you note the symptoms?" asked Mr. Ticks feebly.
"Yes."
"Did you wire them?"
"No; I hadn't time. I----"
"Then do so!" He sank back exhausted.
"But how did you feel? How _do_ you feel?" asked Swift anxiously.
"As mortal never felt before," replied Mr. Ticks solemnly. With these
words upon his lips he lapsed away again into unconsciousness.
That evening at a late hour Swift made his way to the
four-hundred-dollar team under whose protecting shelter he had ensconced
his patient with such poor comfort as was possible.
Mr. Ticks raised himself from the cushions upon one arm.
"Are you ready?" he said restlessly.
"For what?" asked Swift in astonishment.
"To start."
"Not to-night surely?"
"Yes--immediately. Harness up! We must be at the extreme north of this
unclassified belt by to-morrow morning."