The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 27, 1904, Page 6

THE SAN Mark Koy Daniels, author or *“I'he Clutch of Talons,” is a member of the senior class of the University of Cali- fornia. In addition to writing the “curtain raiser” for his class farce Mr. Daniels has done considerable work for the college publications. “The Clutch of Talons,” an unusually strong story, is, however, his first lit- erary effort to appear in other than a college publication. TT to hell out of here!™ 13 Jeke, the burly brakeman raised his lantern so that its circle of light fell upon the vagabond, a huddled blotch in the thest co! box-car. The fig did. not Two white clouds of frosty moisture coming from nc rils alone be- tokened that he was alive. “Oh, Reddy! Come help me pitch hobo out of the empty here.” e had tried evicting tramps single- nded before, as the crooked bridge testimony. He t the car floor witk and blew upon Reddy from the ca- through the and tuck- nose bore e lantern on the open door cramped fingers. boose came ambling gloom, buttoning his jacket ing up his woolen wristlets. Both men clambered into the car. Jake hung the lantern on the rolling hinge of the opposite door. Should- ers touching, the two moved cautious- ly toward the crouched figure in the ner. Without & sound, the squatting be- ing arose to its feet. Over six feet in height, with great boles of muscle out- lined on either side of a huge neck, a chest thick as a tree, and arms like the driving rods of a mountain engine, standing there in the uncer- ht of the trainmen's lantern the appearance of a berserk of a mat of bristling beard g eves shone green and white; the two great arms crooked them- selves inward et the elbows and the knotty fingers curled themselves to- ward the palms. Now, here’s a go, Reddy!” Jake led himself at the throat of the abond. Reddy ducked and hugged one muscle-ribbed leg. In a breath Jake was whirled off his feet and brought down with crushing force over the bent back of his fellow; a grunt barked from the throat of each they rolled sprawling on the car fioor. the m had From two Why, I'll be damned! Why, Il be damned!” murmured Reddy, as he painfully stumbled to s feet. But Jake with a roar of an- ger rushed at the glant again and locked arms with him. Reddy sath- ered himself together and leapt upon the heaving back of the vagabond, his fingers groping through the tangled beard for the horny thorax. They swayed, they tossed; back with & crash egainst the side of the car—now with a slide the giant was brought to one knee; with-a sharp whistle of breath through clenched teeth he was up again. Fingers closed upon his windpipe, and with a quick turn of the head and & viclous snap his teeth met in the lobe of the ear pressed against his bearded cheek. “God, Jake, down the beast!” Red- dy's fingers slipped up and tore at the bulging eyeballs. The great body trembled, lurched forward, and fell with a crash to the car floor. Once the writhing mass of struggling men rned over, and again it fell—this time through the open door of the car to the ground by the track's side. An agonized cough broke from three peirs of tightened lips at the heavy impact. Reddy’s hold was loosened by the fall and his hand fell upon a heavy round stone in the roadbed. Eagerly he grasped it and as the vagabond’s body rolled over him, he groped for the hairy “>rehead and dealt it a crush- ing blow. Agein and agaln sounded that muffied thud of stone against bone. A spasm racked the massive body, the bloodshot eyes rolled back became fllmy, heels rattled for an stant on the grav:' and then the fizht was over. The two brakemen lay upon their backs, with arms limrlv outstretched, until a warning whistle sounded from somewhere ahead in the gloom and as the creaking chain of cars moved slow- ly past they swung themselves pain- fully to the caboose platform. “Wonder if that devil's dead Red- dy, with the reek of battle still in his mouth, spat laboredly and cast his eyes beck to the sprawled blotch by the track side. An instant, and it was swallowed up in the gloom. he tin song of the rails grew into a quaver—a murmur—ceased; the inter- mingble vault of the snowsheds was silent. It was the silence of the rock- ved Sierra, muffied under its stifling weight of winter snow. But the battering of a thousand ham- mers upon brazen plates, the grind of the riven rocks in a titanic earth FLSING POVE HOLE 7 ook o THE JoE. strain, all of the roars from the kit gwollen into one—these were the sound throbs which crashed their way through the giant head lying there by the blooded stone. The fevered brain trembled under the shock of the mad- dened pulses that galloped through its membranes. Now the roaring gave place to a tense ringing, high pitched, incessant— a wall of metal under stress. To the strident screech there was added a minor rumble, growing louder, louder— until it was engulfing. With an agon- ized heave the prone body was raised upon an elbow and the racked and bleeding head turned over a shoulder. To the fevered eyes there came a flash and then the spectacle of a great ball of molten stuff bearing down upon them from the cavern of darkne with a sway and a tilting. Behind the incandescent mass there stireamed a flery gausze, fitfully illumined, rolling in billowy masses. The roar cut like a dull blade. Scarcely could the vagabond shield his eves with an uplifted arm, when a flashing vision of steel, glowing red in flame light, swirled within two feet of him. A whiff of punge-t steam, a grinding of steel on steel, then a black flash followed by block after block of shadow, slit by streaks of light—all this with the speed of a meteor. From beneath those shadow blocks came a noise, rhythmical, compelling; a metallic drumming, a jingling, clanking beat-beat-beat ground into the sick brain. Ah, those chains, those chains—would they never cease din- The giant buried his face in the gravel and tightly bound his great arms about his ears; the fingers cut deep Into the flesh of the interlocked wrists. The vision passed, and silence again settled upon the interminable vault of snowsheds. For some moments lay the strad- dling figure, face downward, in the gravel; then slowly, with halting movements, it arose; first to its knees and then to its feet, swaying dizzily. Staggering to a great square stanch- fon, the vagabond braced his back against the timbers. To the right and left he turned his head—gloom every- where, pierced by the four dull gleam- ing metal lines that bridged the ob- livion at their ends. Above, around, were the shadowy outlines of massive timbers, showing here and there deshes of ghostly gray where the all- pervading snow had forced an en- trance, With faltering step he began to make his way along the track side, leaning heavily upon the massive stanchions for support; before him the gloom—behind him the gloom—Ilight- ed only by the splashes of ghostly gray. Was he. walking through the endless gallery of some mine in the earth’s bowels—or the alley of a prison? At last upon rounding a bend, a broader streak of gray half light flick- ered through the darkness ahead. As he drew closer he saw that a crevice in the boards, larger than the rest, admitted the light and the drifted snow. He stooped and peered, blink- ing through the jagged orifice. White dripping down into shadow- ed depths; white leaping aloft to touch the bellying clouds; white stretching away and away In rounded domes and jagged pinnacles to bound the gray horizon—it was the cloud haven of a dead world he looked upon. Not a film of smoke betokened the presence of man in this unbounded waste; not a sound broke the silence. There lay desolation, oblivion; behind were the four gleaming lines of metal. Down upon his knees dropped the vagabond; he crawled through the crevice, then turned and blocked up the passage with snow. This done, he slowly arose and turned to face the white world with teeth clenched and head thrown back. Directly below him the snowy drift dropped down into a narrow, darkly shadowed canyon; its sinuous length serrated by the bristling tops of black pines. In places gray rocks broke through the mantle of white and even the skeleton hands of shrubs reached forth. There would be roots at least; the belly within him brought decision to the mind. He started to wallow downward through the drifts. As he lifted first one straightened leg and then the other, the fellow grasped his garments at his middle and lifted them up, as if he was supporting some impending weight. Falling, rising again, sinking out of sight in the smother of snow and cleaving his way to freedom, like a great ox he plowed his course 10 waw bottom of the canyon. There, seated on an uncovered boulder, he bowed his head to his knees and panted for breath. As the vagabond's restless and hun- gering eyes roved up and down the nar- row slit in the snowfleld wherein he was ensconced, they suddenly fell upon a dark object lifting fitself a few feet ebove the snow bank several hundred yards up the canyon. The gable and stone chimney of a buried hut were dimly outlined against the white. With a bound the man was on his feet, trembling and half turned to flee, when his searching backward glance revealed no smoke fiitering from the snow-capped chimney; not a sign of life was there. A moment longer he paused, and then made his labored way through the snow up to the eaves of the cabin. On one side the stout tim- bers and rough shakes of the roof alone protruded, but on the opposite end where the drift had been swept par- tially to one side, the upper joist of a hidden door nppeared( level with the feet. A shingle wrenched from the roof served as a shovel. The vagabond pawed the encumbering snow with his hands, kicked it aside with vicious stabs of his feet. Like a dog over a bone, he muttered between clenched teeth at the soft clinging mass until he hed finally uncovered the roughly hewn door to its mid-length. Then he stopped and timidly tried the door. It yielded not. Furiously he dug, and again tried the door; not a creak. A cry, and the wretch dronped to his knees: with his FRANCISCO SUNDAY raw nands he paddled at the snow, dog-like; he strained and cursed. A heave of his great shoulder drew a re- sponsive creak from the door. He withdrew a few feet and hurled his great body in a desperate plunge against the pine slabs. A sharp re- port, and the barrier flew Iinward; amidst a cloud of snow, the huge bulk hurtled headlong through the opening and sprawled on the floor within. He lay as he fell and his great body shook and twitched with sobs of weak- mess. From the wilderness of wind- raked peaks high up In the mists, down through the tortuous alleyways of scarp and crag, there answered the querulous wall of the wind, long drawn, shuddering. Then came the snow—from out the great murk of cloud stretching over this bleak ridge of the world there sifted swiftly, silently, the white smother. About the vagabond in the cabin there settled a barrier shutting him off from the world. Jose Berega, the Portuguese track walker, was returning from his beat in the snowsheds to his little hutch which clung to the eaves of the sheds like a hornet's nest. He had just fin- CALL. ished helping the rallroad men to tnrow through an opening in the sheds the dead body of a steer which had been fatally gored in a crowded stock car. Jose lived very much alone, though the world’s traffic thundered past his door and the world’s news shot over the wires on his cabin roof. This day he had spoken to & man for the first time in a month, and it had been a refresh- ing pleasure. “By Jese, that verra fine cow for pitcha da way.” Pedro, the cat, turn- ed one yellow eye on his master as he paused by the kitchen stove and then dropped off into a doze again. Jose proceeded to skin some warty garlic bulbs and continued: “You Pedro, why not I go choppa da cow up—bringa de home for beefsteak, for soup, for evera day one grub— hey?” He crossed to the window ledge to get his pipe, but suddenly halted, open mouthed. “By Jese—iffa —da —ain't!” His changed tone served to bring a meow of inquiry from Pedro. “A man, if I am a liar—da son-of-a- gun, he walk in da snow—not in da shed.” Stupefied at a' spectacle so unusual, the track walker leaned upon the win- dow ledge, his unlighted pipe cocked at an angle in his beard and his eyes fixed upon the distant pigmy flgure wallow- ing through the drift up the anyon side toward the black line of the sheds. Curiosity quickly superseded the amazement in the track walker's mind. For what possible purpose could a man be plowing over twenty-foot drifts in the dead Sierra winter. “By Jese Cri'—he go to aa cow:™ Jose was all excitement now. “You Pedro, da son-of-a-gun he getta our cow—our steak—our grub, if I am a Har!” Jose had already made a reach for his hat and started for the door, all protest against unlawful usurpation But a thought struck in on him. This man did not live anywhere around here; he couldn’t carry away the whole of the carcass for any distance, so he nust only want a piece. He evidently wanted it badly and would therefore fight for it. It plainly would be best to wait and watch. So Jose waited and witnessed a sight the like of which he had never before seen. He saw the distant form gradu- ally grow into a giant as it approached. This glant attacked the gored steer with an ax, hewing it as he would a tree. Finally he lifted the massive hind-quarters to his shoulders and staggered down the fresh trall into the shadow of the canyon. In an hour the glant reappeared, seized the remainder of the dead steer and dragged it down again among the black pines at the bottom of the slope. Jose’s cupidity steeled his courage. Taking down from its peg’ a pair of long, stout, oaken skees, he armed him- self with a dirk and left the hut. What had been labor to that strange forest glant was child's play to Jose—skim- ming over the drift on his polished skees with little effort. Hitting upon the jagged, biood-spotted trail which had marked the giant's passage, he fol- lowed it down the slope into the trees. Rounding a mound of rocks Jose saw the trail's end—it was at the cabin of old Greasy Baker, the crazy miner, who was wintering down at Grass Valley. Smoke was seeping through the chimney and the snow about the door was trampled. This evidently was the home which the stranger had appropriated. Jose’s heart beats were of no great regularity as he shuffled quietly up to the door, a forced smile of welcome on his face. He leaned over the edge of the drift and looked in. He saw a great figure squatting before the fire with its massive back turned to the door. Jose coughed. With a scream like a trapped pan- ther the great man leaped to his feet and whirled about. His face was livid behind the shock of whiskers; his eyes glowed green. Bellowing something in a strange tongue the giant, sud- denly made beast, seized the ax by his side and sprung behind the rough table in readiness for defense. Jose looked just once and then was gone like a hunted rabbit. That afternoon Jose walited impa- tiently by the watering tank until the heavy freight from the West thun- dered in and came to a standstill be- neath the swinging pipe. Jose by the side of the great driving wheels waved excitedly at the engineer and bawled above the hiss of the steam valve: “Come-a da 'long down an’ kill for me da hairy man. He drop in from da cloud—he tak-a da 'way da cow— I go for get him—he shaka da ax at me an’ yell like hell!” Jose's excited gestures and high pitched appeal for vengeance at- tracted a group of trainmen, who listened to his hysterical account of the encounter with the unknown glant. “Big as a house, hair all over, pig eyes—eh Jose?” a big brakeman with a plaster over one eye broke In. “Sure—da verra same: he look lika gT. greezly bear—teeth an’ eyes like m."” Jose’s questioner gave his head a knowing shake as of one who could attest to the qualities of the “greezly bear” in question. “But com-a da long and kill him,” urged the terrified Jose. “Maybe he come to my house when I sleep and choka da eyes out me.” A warning double blast of the whistle cut short Jose’s appeal. The train crew re- turned to their places and the great creaking line of cars moved away into the gloom, leaving Jose alone with his haunting fear. The days wore on. Under the dead gray vault of the jumbled clouds Jose and the vagabond lived—two life specks in the dull gleaming world of silence which encompassed them. In the face of the infinite terror of solitude which pressed upon their souls a compelling fear of one another separated them by a gulf unbounded. As each gray morn- ing dawned Jose peeped timorously out of his frosted window to see If the va- grant wisp of smoke still arose from the bottom of the canyon. Long hours the vagabond spent in ceaseless vigil upon the hutch under the eaves of the snowsheds from the snowy branch of a tree near his cabin. Once again did the two catch sight of one another. In making his morn- ing tour of inspection Jose started to cross a trestle which bridged the chasm of a frozen torrent. His foot dislodged some snow, and without thought Jose paused to watch it fall into the depths below. As he looked between the ties he saw far below him the giant hud- dled over a black hole in the ice with a fish line hanging taut from his great red fist. At the shower of snow crys- tals the bearded face was turmed up 7z " RITED FEMANL® the pounce o se’s throat closed - ced his path until safely within the sh then he broke run, which brought him his door. ame the equinoctial the gray bellying clouds had hurried up from the south, piling t} el up against the gra - 1 the granite in a sea of The shriek of the wind sounded ite spine of the range until they see ed ready to burst throus dam and flood the we vapor. down t rough the cloven peaks like the twang of a stretched wire. Pine trees groaned under the strain and tossed their tattered arms in wild desperation at the onslaught of the tempest. Snow fell in swirls and wild dancing eddies ever, e Swiftly drifts were piled and sw black rocks blown bare. The sky was a void, the air a blinding smother dead, frozen m In the heart c earth was become a nfleld the storm there sud- denly came a h the clouds caught up the myriad snowflakes trembling on the fall; the wind was pemt in a deadly whisper; the silence of space settled over the frozen world crest “Open up In there!” Jose, nodding over his pipe, leaped to his feet at the summons an the kick on his door which accompanied it. Trembling, he unbarred the door of his cabin and put an eye to the crack. The door was rudely pushed into his face and three men entered. “I'm the Sheriff from Cisco, repre- sentin’ the peace and dignity of the United States,” announced the first of the intruders, “and these two gents is Roosian officers from Siberia.” The Sheriff nodded toward the two figures standing stiffly in their long green coats and top boots. They gave a grave nod to the astounded track- walker, then stood erect agaln, their faces immobile as wood. “You take us down to Greasy Baker's cabin where that hairy fellow lives— we're after him.” The Sheriff's manner was as terse as his command. Awed beyond all power of speech, Jose mechanically reached for his cap and knife, never taking his eye off the two stiff figures standing there in their long green coats. Down the steep slope of the canyen the four men floundered, fighting the clinging snow with vicious kicks and lunges, until the gray peak of the cabin appeared to view. Jose, with a warn- ing finger on his lips, dropped to the rear. The two Russians drew revolvers and eagerly breasted the drifts with their eyes glittering under their frosted lashes and their teeth glinting through the ice crystals on their beards. They paused at the door, and then with a loud command burled it open, their re- volvers held at full cock before them. Not a sound greeted their intrusion— the cabin was empty. In vain did the Russians kick the dying embers on the hearth into a glow, and search the dim recesses of the cabin. Vainly did they stamp and give tongue to somorous oaths. Only the log walls replied to their furious imprecations. Jose ventured to thrust his head in at the door and wave at the excited officers, pointing meanwhile in expressive pantomime to freshly made tracks in the smow, which led away from the cabin door. The Rus- sians comprehended and Immediately took to the trail llke hounds on the scent. The tracks led off from the cabin straight up the side of the canyon op- posite. The jagged foot-holes were wide apart; the mark of a hurried fist was occasionally interspersed between the tracks. The storm which had been hanging over the crest of the mountains now gave Itself up to a mew fury. Once again the air was fllled with blinding white and the rushing wind leaped down from the ice fields, carrying with it myriads of tiny crystal teeth, which stung like wasps. Often driven to thei floundering figures knees, the four pressed up the crag's e, fighting for breath, stum- bling and rising again to press ever higher mute sign posts which they were following mounted bit by bit up to the very ridge of the frozen world But with every flying crystal the footprints of the fugitive, at first jag- ged and deep, showed rounded and smooth of edge, and ever that sifting cloud of white, smoothing, obliterating. The beards of the panting Russians skimmed the drift as, laboring, they followed the ever dimming tracks. Across the frozen Bering Sea had they followed this very trail, only to find that a vagrant whaleship had harbored their prey. Relentlessly they had pur- sued to San Francisco: unerringly they had pushed the scent up to the ‘summit of these strange mountains where death lurked. Now upon their knees they scrambled along the unending trail, which grew \“m':aé;n: dimmer—with every fleeting moment. The Russians cursed and shook their fists up at the blinding sw flakes. Higher, higher—dimmer and more dim the scaliops in the drift, A scoop in the snmow, a shallow trough, a finger's scratch—then the smooth, unsullied white, mounting uo and up to meet the swirling storm clouds, dark with mystery.