Genre Fiction. Page - 215

lulled Mr. Cobb's never active mind into completeoblivion as to his promise of keeping an eye onRebecca.

Suddenly he heard a small voice above the rattleand rumble of the wheels and the creaking of theharness. At first he thought it was a cricket, a treetoad, or a bird, but having determined the directionfrom which it came, he turned his head over hisshoulder and saw a small shape hanging as far outof the window as safety would allow. A long blackbraid of hair swung with the motion of the coach;the child held her hat in one hand and with theother made ineffectual attempts to stab the driverwith her microscopic sunshade.

"Please let me speak!" she called.

Mr. Cobb drew up the horses obediently.

"Does it cost any more to ride up there withyou?" she asked. "It's so slippery and shiny downhere, and the stage is so much too big for me, thatI rattle round in it till I'm 'most black and blue.And the windows are so small I can only see piecesof things, and I've 'most broken my neck stretc

ow I did it, I'm sure I can teach other people. I'm no different than they are; and I don't intend to be.

She went back to the bed and sat down and began to think.

And she discovered that she could remember the greater part of everything she'd ever read.

CHAPTER IV

Calvin practiced teleportation for endless hours. He kept the metal ball Forential had given him in almost constant motion.

He would exclaim delightedly and hurl it toward one of the twenty-seven other mutants in his compartment. Until the time he hit John in the back of the head with it, his intended victims had always parried it. John lay in a pool of blood, and Calvin began to cry--loud, shrill wails of despair and contrition. When Forential came, he knew instinctively what had happened.

Calvin represented the only failure the aliens had experienced in their mutation program; ten years ago his mind had ceased to develop. But for Forential's intercession, the c

a red light, that streamed across the ceiling and staved off the shadows from me. The fire! Of course I could still thrust my candle between the bars and relight it.

I turned to where the flames were still dancing between the glowing coals and splashing red reflections upon the furniture; made two steps toward the grate, and incontinently the flames dwindled and vanished, the glow vanished, the reflections rushed together and disappeared, and as I thrust the candle between the bars darkness closed upon me like the shutting of an eye, wrapped about me in a stifling embrace, sealed my vision, and crushed the last vestiges of self-possession from my brain. And it was not only palpable darkness, but intolerable terror. The candle fell from my hands. I flung out my arms in a vain effort to thrust that ponderous blackness away from me, and lifting up my voice, screamed with all my might, once, twice, thrice. Then I think I must have staggered to my feet. I know I thought suddenly of the moonlit corridor, and

d been as good as Gold,
She Promised in the Afternoon
To buy him an _Immense BALLOON_.

And

[Illustration]

so she did; but when it came,
It got into the candle flame,
And being of a dangerous sort
Exploded

[Illustration]

with a loud report!

The Lights went out! The Windows broke!
The Room was filled with reeking smoke.
And in the darkness shrieks and yells
Were mingled with Electric Bells,
And falling masonry and groans,
And crunching, as of broken bones,
And dreadful shrieks, when, worst of all,
The House itself began to fall!
It tottered, shuddering to and fro,
Then crashed into the street below--
Which happened to be Savile Row.

• * *

When Help arrived, among the Dead

[Illustration]

Were

Cousin Mary,

[Illustration]

Little Fred,

[Illustration]

The Footmen

[Illustration]

(both of them),

[Illustration]

The Gro

s well to be on the safe side, sir," replied Tom.

"Safe side!" repeated the captain, laughing. "You'd guard against asun-stroke, with that old hat, in an Ice Pack. Wa'al! What haveyou made out at the Post-office?"

"It is the Post-office, sir."

"What's the Post-office?" said the captain.

"The name, sir. The name keeps the Post-office."

"A coincidence!" said the captain. "A lucky bit! Show me where itis. Good-bye, shipmates, for the present! I shall come and haveanother look at you, afore I leave, this afternoon."

This was addressed to all there, but especially the young fisherman;so all there acknowledged it, but especially the young fisherman."He's a sailor!" said one to another, as they looked after thecaptain moving away. That he was; and so outspeaking was the sailorin him, that although his dress had nothing nautical about it, withthe single exception of its colour, but was a suit of a shore-goingshape and form, too long in the sleeves and too short in the legs,and to

tch--against thot wagon and horses yours, and thee harness--thee whole damned shutting-match--thot I haf win!" He proceeded to finish his cigarette.

Felipe stared at him hard. Surely his ears had deceived him! If they had not deceived him, if, for a fact, the hombre had expressed a willingness to bet all he had on the outcome of this thing, then Franke, fellow-townsman, compadre, brother-wood-hauler, was crazy! But he determined to find out.

"What you said, Franke?" he asked, peering into the glowing eyes of the other. "Say thot again, hombre!"

"I haf say," repeated the other, with lingering emphasis upon each word--"I haf say I bet you everyt'ing--wagon, harness, caballos--everyt'ing!--against thot wagon, harness, caballos yours--everyt'ing--thee whole shutting-match--thot I haf win thee bet!"

Again Felipe lowered his eyes. But now to consider suspicions. He had heard rightly; Franke really wanted to bet all he had. But he could not but

think I must have been hypnotized. I stood there like a frozen image, and let that crippled cow-rustler rob those two women--take the rings from their fingers!"

"Oh, hold on; there's another side to all that, and you know it," the vice-president began; but Lidgerwood would not listen.

"No," he protested; "don't try to find excuses for me; there were none. The fellow gave me every chance; turned his back on me as an absolutely negligible factor while he was going through the others. I'm quick enough when the crisis doesn't involve a fighting man's chance; and I can handle a gun, too, when the thing to be shot at isn't a human being. But to save my soul from everlasting torments I couldn't go through the simple motions of pulling the pistol from my pocket and dropping that fellow in his tracks; couldn't and didn't."

"Why, of course you couldn't, after it had got that far along," asserted Ford. "I doubt if any one could. That little remark about the gun in your pocket did you up. When a man

es really did send for the doctor, who came briskly in, just as Elizabeth Ann had always seen him, with his little square black bag smelling of leather, his sharp eyes, and the air of bored impatience which he always wore in that house. Elizabeth Ann was terribly afraid to see him, for she felt in her bones he would say she had galloping consumption and would die before the leaves cast a shadow. This was a phrase she had picked up from Grace, whose conversation, perhaps on account of her asthma, was full of references to early graves and quick declines.

And yet--did you ever hear of such a case before?--although Elizabeth Ann when she first stood up before the doctor had been quaking with fear lest he discover some deadly disease in her, she was very much hurt indeed when, after thumping her and looking at her lower eyelid inside out, and listening to her breathing, he pushed her away with a little jerk and said: "There's nothing in the world the matter with that child. She's as sound as a nut! What sh

his need of head covering, and he seemed unconscious of, or else indifferent to, the hot glare of the summer sky which was hardly tempered by the long shadow of the floating cloud. At some moments he was absorbed in reading,--at others in writing. Close within his reach was a small note-book in which from time to time he jotted down certain numerals and made rapid calculations, frowning impatiently as though the very act of writing was too slow for the speed of his thought. There was a wonderful silence everywhere,--a silence such as can hardly be comprehended by anyone who has never visited wide-spreading country, over-canopied by large stretches of open sky, and barricaded from the further world by mountain ranges which are like huge walls built by a race of Titans. The dwellers in such regions are few--there is no traffic save the coming and going of occasional pack-mules across the hill tracks--no sign of modern civilisation. Among such deep and solemn solitudes the sight of a living human being is strang

d enlivened by a multitude of birds.We overtook on the way our late fellow-travelers, the Kansas Indians,who, adorned with all their finery, were proceeding homeward at around pace; and whatever they might have seemed on board the boat,they made a very striking and picturesque feature in the forestlandscape.

Westport was full of Indians, whose little shaggy ponies were tied bydozens along the houses and fences. Sacs and Foxes, with shavedheads and painted faces, Shawanoes and Delawares, fluttering incalico frocks, and turbans, Wyandottes dressed like white men, and afew wretched Kansas wrapped in old blankets, were strolling about thestreets, or lounging in and out of the shops and houses.

As I stood at the door of the tavern, I saw a remarkable lookingperson coming up the street. He had a ruddy face, garnished with thestumps of a bristly red beard and mustache; on one side of his headwas a round cap with a knob at the top, such as Scottish laborerssometimes wear; his coat