*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79518 ***




FLESH

By Karl W. Detzer


Paddy Maguire was born on the tailboard, as they say in the fire
department. His father, proud old Ham Maguire, served as foreman of a
hose company near the South Water Street docks for twenty years before
the Great Fire in 1871. Paddy remembered the Great Fire; he was ten
years old then. It was during that three-day catastrophe he decided he
would be a fireman.

Old Ham sat at supper when the church bells rang the alarm that warm
October afternoon. He drank his coffee hurriedly and ran south on State
Street, pulling a hose reel. Paddy saw him once, early next morning,
advancing stubbornly against the flames. Ham was killed the second
afternoon. On the third day, General Phil Sheridan, leading his ragged
militia, ended the fire with gunpowder. Paddy remembered him, too.
General Phil and old Ham were the heroes of the Great Fire.

When Paddy was seventeen, he joined Engine 10. Hand drawn reels, leather
hose and gooseneck pumps with the long rocking brakes were disappearing
from the department in those days. Horseflesh, steam and hard rubber
line were coming in. Paddy, with the willingness of youth, greeted the
new order enthusiastically. Let old men grumble that steam engines were
not yet fully tested, that they’d break down when a crisis faced them!

Forty hot, smoky years Paddy served. He watched the slow pendulum of
politics sway left and right, saw good marshals and bad marshals, saw
efficiency come and efficiency go. But he never played with votes. He
was a fireman, he said fiercely, and flame wasn’t concerned with ward
boundaries and election days.

Pipeman and ladderman he labored—Engine 10, Engine 1, Engine 13, Engine
98, Truck 9. He drove squad wagon and hose cart and steamer in turn,
“buggies” of battalion chiefs, light single horse rigs, heavy teams and
majestic three horse hitches. They still tell the story in the
department of the time Paddy pushed his wide-shouldered grays on a slow
gallop from the Loop to the Yards, a stiff five miles, breaking through
traffic, and not a speck of foam on their flanks when they got there.

A hard-headed horseman was Paddy Maguire. Early in the spring of 1907 he
became a lieutenant, second in command of Engine 189. His hair was
whitening then, and his beard, which he parted into two sharp prongs.

“There’s talk of horseless wagons in the business,” his senior pipeman,
Jim Casey, told him one summer night. “Automobiles.”

“Aye, talk, devil ’em,” Paddy answered.

He was standing in front of the alarm board. A gentle wind from the lake
found its way through dusty streets and into the wide, open front doors.
Paddy had unbuttoned his shirt at the throat to get full advantage of
the breeze.

“Gasoline in the fire business? It ain’t to be trusted. Takes flesh.
Flesh and steam.”

He snorted fiercely. Like a blue-shirted, gray-bearded Canute he scorned
the rising mechanical tide. Fight fire with gasoline? Without the throb
of steamy pistons to tune your heart? Run without horses? It was a
pretty mess those young Johnny-jump-ups were getting into down at the
city hall!

In spite of him, gasoline found its way into the department. Paddy
Maguire growled and talked on. At least they’d not try to foist such
nonsense on him! Steamer 189 was safe for a while yet. And these
gasoline rigs often didn’t get there. He did not hide his delight at a
stalled ladder truck, halted on its way to a fire with the whole crew
tampering with the motor. He rang his bell joyfully and galloped past in
a triumphant clatter of hooves. He sulked whenever a veteran, some man
his own age, retired; whenever young blood came into the department.
Mechanics. Fools who talked horsepower and didn’t know horses. Who spoke
of rotary pumps and centrifugals, nozzle tip pressures and gallons per
minute. Of cylinders and shafts. Of sixty miles an hour. They intruded
into his own company, alert-eyed, upstanding youths with capable hands.

“You’d best tend the hocks of that off horse on the wagon,” he would say
chidingly. Or, “A currycomb ain’t a blasted ornament, boys. It’s to be
used.” Then to himself as he stamped away, “Devil ’em.”

At last in 1918, with only a score of horse-drawn rigs in the department,
he couldn’t find a driver to his liking.

“I’ll drive engine myself,” he told his men finally, “and I’ll break the
way with her. There ain’t one o’ you got the feel of a rein in your
fingers. A three-horse hitch, men, it’s got to be handled expert. No,
I’ll drive, and I’ll break with the steamer. The cart can follow.”

The old steam engine, its tall brass air chamber still flashing defiance
at the crimson march of progress, stood stoutly upon its high rear
wheels on the right of the hose wagon in Paddy’s quarters. The uplifted
snap collars still gaped over the double tongue, brass buckled harness
ready to drop on broad dappled backs. At the rear of the quarters the
five horses scuffed their stalls, bit at each other playfully, and
clanked their slip chains. Under the alarm stand the kick board stood
ready to trip open the stable doors. When an alarm rattled in, the drum
of hooves and the snorts of the animals as they charged to their places
made music in Paddy’s ears.

Other old men, retired firemen and men who loved the past, made a habit
of coming to Engine 189 to smoke a reflective pipe and breathe
gratefully the pungent odor of saddle soap, leather and sweat, of loose
hay and hot metal, to saturate their souls in the rich, ammoniac breath
of the barns.

                *       *       *       *       *

Then one hot day in 1920 the order arrived, brief, soulless as the very
cylinders of the new engines. It told Paddy Maguire to prepare for a
thousand-gallon motor pumper.

“You will place the new pumper, serial number to be assigned, in
operation in your company immediately upon delivery and acceptance by
department engineers,” it directed. “The machine will arrive tomorrow.
Old apparatus will at once be turned in as salvage to department shops.
You will appoint a member of your company to serve as driver and
operator. The horses, after inspection by city veterinary, will be
assigned to city barns, for auction to the highest bidder.”

It bore the signature of the chief of department.

Paddy Maguire had prepared for this emergency. Many nights he had lain
wakeful in resentful anticipation of it. He was hard-headed; he knew it
would come. The last two months, aye the last twelve, he had steeled
himself against it. He read the cruel words a second time and a third.
Then he crumpled the paper in his hand, concealed it in his wide palm as
if it were something shameful, and walked to the rear of the quarters.

There he spoke to the five horses, calling each by name. He offered them
scrap tobacco, which they accepted greedily. He patted their noses,
swore at them affectionately, as was his habit, then with feet that were
heavy and rebellious he climbed to his office on the second floor. He
wrote painfully for half an hour while his crew waited, ill at ease,
below. When he descended the stair he wore his dress uniform.

“Take charge, Jim,” he instructed. “I’m going out a bit.”

At the city hall he walked through echoing corridors to the calm,
orderly office of the chief of department. He was admitted at once. The
chief was a younger man than Paddy Maguire.

“I got your message,” the lieutenant said.

“And you’ve come to argue it,” his superior predicted. “No, Paddy, it’s
no good. I’m sorry. Know how you feel. We held off on you to the last.”

“I ain’t arguin’. I brung you something. Here’s my resignation.”

“Now, Paddy—”

“Aye, it’s final.”

“But you’re a good man—”

“Aye, you’ll have the devil of a time findin’ better, if I do say it.
But you best start huntin’. I’m out. Me and the beasts, we go together,
and you can have your blasted tin pumps. See how long they last, ’side
of good horseflesh. As for the rest o’ you, askin’ your pardon, sir, you
can go to hell.”

So Paddy Maguire left the city fire department. He was fifty-seven years
old, and had served faithfully forty battling years. The pension board
met at once, in extraordinary session, and the chief appeared before it
personally with his recommendation, which the board accepted. Paddy was
retired, without examination, on two-thirds pay for the remainder of his
life.

He did not go back to quarters that day. Next morning he returned, in
spite of himself. He came to clear out his desk. He explained gruffly to
the crew. But he waited, wasting time on one pretext or another, till
the new apparatus arrived. Sour of face, he watched the new resplendent,
crimson pumper back into the house. He stood aside, chewing his tongue,
when the stall doors were tripped for the last time and the horses
trotted out. He did not speak. Only turned fiercely and started for his
rooming house.

As he crossed the Rush Street bridge, where Great Lakes steamers lay at
their berths, he hung a moment, with apparent laziness, watching their
trim reflections in the oily current. Stokers were getting up steam in
two of them. Bound somewhere or other. Didn’t make much difference
where, Paddy reflected. He’d always hankered for a good long boat ride.

Listlessly he shuffled down the steps to the lower level. Unaccustomed
freedom lay heavily upon him. He inquired of a man in uniform at the
gangplank as to rates and ports of call.

“Northern peninsula this trip,” the official replied. “All ports along
the north shore.”

So ex-Lieutenant Maguire bought a stiff straw hat and an umbrella, and
with civilian clothes in his handbag and a broken heart in his chest,
embarked on his first vacation in forty years. That night he leaned
against the rail and watched the city sink beneath its clouds of
industrial smoke, saw its lights flash on and sparkle as gaily as if
they did not know that Paddy Maguire, son of proud old Ham, had left the
fire department.

“They can burn an’ fry, for what I care!” he growled. “Devil ’em!”

He was up next morning early. In the engine room companionway he stared
down the black iron steps into the brilliant glare of nickel and brass
and white paint. The drum of the engine warmed his tired heart. The
smell of steam and oil arose to his nostrils; he was grateful for it. No
gasoline fol-de-rol here! At noon another vessel crawled up from behind
and passed.

“A Diesel,” some one explained. “Internal combustion, like a big
automobile engine. Great compression. They’re taking the place of
steam.”

Paddy, listening, swore a rich string of oaths across the blue water.

It was suppertime when the ship docked at Glidden on the north shore.
The town drowsed in the declining light, a dilapidated, sprawling
panorama, unpainted and falling to disrepair. There was something
appropriate about sunset here, Paddy thought. Gaunt gray mills with
sagging roofs spotted the riverbank. The black scars of fire were
everywhere. A dying town, seen in the fading light of a dying day.

“We lie over here three hours,” a steward told old Paddy. “Loading tan
bark. Give you time to stretch your legs ashore.”

Paddy walked up the mouldering pier. Halfbreeds were lazily trundling
hand barrows over the ragged planks. A few piles of old gray lumber
spotted the shore line. A mill town, this. And no more timber. Paddy
felt that he was entering the gates of a dead community as he stepped
into the long, lonely street. It reminded him of himself, somehow. It
had served its splendid purpose, had known heroic days. It had lived its
glamorous moment. Now only fading memories remained.

A lank dog slunk past. A pair of children played noisily farther on.
Under foot the flimsy rails of lumber tramways crisscrossed on their way
to the shore. The sun was falling behind the high, gaunt roofs of silent
mills. Paddy walked the length of the first street. He’d not go far.
Just stretch his legs, as the steward said. He had already turned back
when a bell rattled behind him.

A hose wagon charged past. Paddy stopped. A good sorrel team there.
Light—not more than twenty-four hundred pounds. One man on the seat, a
lad on the tailboard. Then the engine; a big fellow, an old Nott. A
five-hundred gallon tea kettle, bless her! Thirty years, if a day, in
service. Her driver was of Paddy’s age. His chin was whiskered like
Paddy’s own. Another man, past middle age, jolted on the hearth,
flinging the first scattered coal into the fire door. Paddy stood
motionless while the two teams charged down the street in a gay racket
of hooves, brass bells and iron tires. The tang of pine kindling
assailed his nostrils pleasantly after the engine went by, trailing
sparks and light blue smoke. Paddy followed.

                *       *       *       *       *

The town had come to life suddenly. Men and boys were running down the
steep street. Paddy hurried. He carried his umbrella on his arm. He felt
sorry for that fire company. Three men and a boy! How could you put out
a fire with three men and a boy? And volunteers at that, very likely.

“Devil ’em!” Paddy growled. “Volunteers is a nuisance!”

He smelled the fire; smelled it before he saw it. It was down beside the
wharves, not so far from the loading ship. Flame rolled in sulky clouds
out of an old warehouse, black smoke screened it or hung with gilded
edges about the windows. The Glidden fire department shouted feebly as
it went at its unequal task. The old Nott steamer straddled a manhole in
a crumbling wooden bridge and the engineer crammed coal into the
firebox.

Paddy stood back and watched. He felt distasteful admiration as the
fight started; admiration for the crew—three men and a boy!—distaste for
the miserable equipment. It was a disgrace even to volunteers—stiff hose
that leaked at every coupling and spouted geysers from a score of holes,
bent leather nozzles, warped ladders. Only the engine, that stout
old-timer, stirred the cooling blood in his heart.

Its faithful pistons pounded up and down with a wheezy, steamy note, its
whole iron frame vibrated in the ecstasy of its labors. Like suppressed
laughter the vibration sounded, laughter at the fumbling crew. It had
taken them three minutes to lay two lines—lay two lines and stand one
ladder insecurely against the front of the two-story warehouse. Paddy
growled to himself. The boy and one of the men had started to throw
water in the front door. The other two were clumsily lifting hose up the
ladder.

“That ain’t the way!” Paddy complained. He pressed his straw hat tight
upon his head. “Best get other side—there’s the fire—other side—”

He found himself running, shouting. Vehemently he usurped command. A
volunteer blockaded him. Paddy beat him with the umbrella.

“Give me that pipe!” he roared. “Drag that there ladder here. Never mind
who I am, give ’er here! Now—up—lean ’er ag’in’ the side. Now the pipe!
Boost, will you? Up! Now water! Water, devil ’em! Charge the line! Ye
blasted apes, charge the line!”

Astonished townsmen saw the passenger from the steamer, the stiff straw
hat clinging somehow to his head, on the top rung of the ladder, pelting
water into the fire. They saw smoke turn from black to purple under his
ferocious attack, from purple to gray. They heard him curse the fire
with satisfying gusto, saw him crawl boldly upward. Flame gave way
before him. Not once did he rest, till his chin touched the steaming
sill.

“Give me more line now, you apes!” he howled. “Line, and a boost. I’m
going in.”

It was the middle of the evening and the lights of the departed steamer
were drifting down the bay when Paddy Maguire, ex-lieutenant, climbed
from the warehouse, wet, smoky and triumphant. He still wore a drenched
and dirty straw hat. On the ground he gave up his hose.

“Gotta go now,” he said, “miss my boat, first thing.”

He took off the ruined hat and looking at it once, tossed it indignantly
into the lake.

“End o’ that.”

He stared at the empty wharf.

“Hey!” he demanded. “Where’s me boat?”

No one answered. He repeated the question.

“We was telling you—” a man began.

“You left me miss my boat?” Paddy bellowed. “All my duds on it? How’m I
to dry off?”

“Dunno,” said the man.

Paddy roared. The lights of the steamer looked back at him
unconcernedly. He turned angrily on the first individual who approached.
It was the mayor, it happened. Paddy heard impatiently all that he had
to say. He didn’t care for the gratitude of this town. The mayor, an
ex-lumberman, was short and stocky and less experienced in oratory than
Paddy himself.

“You saved the town,” he admitted. “Raised a lot o’ hell doin’ it, but
saved it. But you got no call hollerin’ about your boat. Nobody was
holding you. There’ll be another ’un in three, four days.”

“From what I see of it, the blasted town wasn’t worth savin’,” Paddy
answered honestly. “But these firemen o’ yours! Why, devil ’em, they was
standin’ outside. Somebody’s got to go in, so I took over the job. I was
a fireman wanst,” he added.

He accepted the mayor’s invitation for the night. So far as he could see
there was no place else to sleep. Next morning, having nosed about the
streets for two hours, he returned with unimproved temper and told the
official and his astonished clerk what he thought of Glidden.

“It’s nothing but fire traps. Ain’t you got a prevention bureau? Nobody
ever make inspection? If there was such conditions in my district I’d
’a’ got ten days without pay every week in the year and throwed out in
the bargain. What kind o’ chief’d let dirty rubbish lay around loose
like I seen today?”

“Chief’s dead,” the mayor said. “Been dead ten year. He got blowed up in
a boiler explosion. Capt’n’s a good man. Can’t see as we need a chief.”

“No chief?” Paddy objected. “Who’s boss?”

“I am,” the mayor answered.

Paddy departed, scowling. No chief. The town deserved to burn up. He’d
only been a lieutenant himself. The head of this department ranked a
captain, and what did he know? Not much. Not half what he should. Old
Paddy Maguire, ex-company commander of Steamer 189, had thrown exactly
three recruits out of his engine house for knowing more than this
captain did. Nor was he a volunteer. It had been a shock when Paddy
discovered this was a paid, full-time organization. Captain and crew,
who knew nothing about fighting fire except to stand outside and pour
water, and lots of it, in exchange for this ignorance received good,
negotiable money.

                *       *       *       *       *

Irresistibly, he sought the engine house. Twice this morning he had been
there. Its warm rich color of horses and harness was the only pleasant
thing in town. The big room was empty this time as he opened the door;
the only sound was the scuff-scuff of horses.

“Hey!” Paddy called, and receiving no response, repeated, “Hey!” He
waited a moment before he bellowed.

The four horses looked out at him reproachfully through the bars in the
stable doors. A boy, attracted by his howling, stepped in from the
street.

“Looking for somebody, mister? Lunch time. They’ve all gone home.”

“All?” Paddy screamed. “Ow, devil ’em! All at once? Nobody on watch?
Well, the quicker this town burns the better.”

The boy retreated. Paddy grunted, and looked at his watch. The boy was
right. It was noon. They’d left the alarm stand useless as a run-down
clock. Well, maybe that was the way they did it here in Glidden.

He stared about the room appraisingly. There were a good many things he
could teach this crew! His eyes came to rest on the worn snap collars
pendant above the engine tongue. A right fancy pair they had been once;
gone to ruin now. Their creased leather, the knotting padding,
protruding rivets angered him.

He stalked out to the stalls. The pair of grays reared nervously as he
approached. Speaking softly—crooning almost—with the tips of his short
hard fingers he stroked the soft skin of their noses. They quieted under
his gentle touch. Their pink nostrils trembled and one drew back its
lips.

Friendly beasts, he remarked; near enough like his own dapples on 189 to
be twins. He guessed their age as seven or eight, their weight around
twenty-six hundred. Well fed, but a mite too light. He spoke aloud.

“Twenty-eight hundred’s light enough. Ought to be twenty-eight for any
tea kettle.”

Back of the stalls, in the men’s loafing rooms, he sat down at a round
table, painted dingy green, and stared dejectedly at the floor. He
couldn’t see the horses from here; only a long, well-brushed tail
swished into sight occasionally. Paddy lighted his pipe. He was
homesick. Three days away from his own team, and missing ’em worse than
he did his own bed! He arose hopefully and offered tobacco to each horse
in turn. They refused it, snorting. Paddy growled. Had nobody taught
these horses any manners?

He returned heavily to the apparatus room and looked at his own
reflection in the round-bellied boiler. He was out of the fire business.
The cold fact lodged uncomfortably in him. He hadn’t felt its full
weight before. Out. No more four-eleven alarms. No more smoke to eat.
Never again the yank and jerk of a loping team that’s minding the bell.
Two-thirds pay for life. And idleness. He looked again into the brassy
mirror. Not so old. A lot of good fight left in him yet.

The crew was a long time absent. By the dingy green table Paddy smoked
three pipes; twice arose from the split chair and tried to feed the
dapples tobacco. It seemed unreasonable that they would not eat it. The
off horse on the hose wagon, one of the sorrels, sidled to the left once
as he approached and went down to his knees cautiously. Paddy observed
the slip chain tighten and pull up its head. He growled, significantly;
when the first man entered Paddy was ready with complaint.

“Chain on this horse is too short,” he said. “Can’t lay down
comfortable.”

It was the captain who had come in, a fat little man named Hicks.

“Ain’t supposed to lay down,” he answered.

“Ain’t supposed?” Paddy retorted. “Free country, ain’t it? Horse got a
right to lay down if he wants. If you was a horse, think you wouldn’t
get sick and tired o’ standin’ around all day? Add two foot to that
chain.” He spoke with command; immediately went on, “Your dapples there,
look at ’em—collar sores on both. Noticed when I come in them snap
collars ain’t right. No horse born ever had a neck to fit one o’ them.
Might’ve been made by a barn carpenter. Rivets sticking clear through.
Elegant with brass trimmings, all right, but I never knowed a horse yet
as was particular about the outside of a collar.”

“We was aimin’ to fix ’em,” the captain said.

“I’ll fix ’em,” Paddy declared. “Right now. Won’t wait to aim.”

He walked forward, passing around the low right-hand wheel of the
steamer.

“Trip that team,” he ordered.

Reluctantly the captain obeyed. With his right foot he kicked the board
pivoted vertically under the alarm stand. There was a squeak of
tightening wires, a snap of metal latches at the rear of the house. The
stable doors flapped open and the two engine horses trotted forward
sleepily. Their shod hooves thumped the floor with a hollow drumming
sound. Opposite the tongue of the engine they halted, and each backed
expertly into place under the suspended harness. Paddy jerked down on
the gaping collars and snapped them over the necks of the team.

“Look-ee,” he shouted. “Tighter’n a number six shoe. Like to choke ’em
to death, let alone wear their skin off. Know how to wear your own
collar, mister? Give me a hammer and nail set!” He drove two rivets
deeper; with his fists kneaded the padding. “What you call these
beasts?”

“Tom and Jerry.”

“What’s the sorrels?”

“Peter and Paul.”

“Knowed a Tom and Jerry once,” Paddy said. “Me own three hitch had a
Tom. Tom, Dick and Harry.”

Again, gently, he stroked their soft noses. Their gray manes hung close
to his face. He patted their dappled, well-fed sides, once each; then
felt his own gray beard thoughtfully.

“We’re of a color,” he told the pair confidentially. “We matches, me and
you. Dappled. The three of us. I guess I’ll drive this team.”

He left the house without explanation.

“I’ll be your blasted chief,” he told the mayor. “For nothin’. They
ain’t a town north o’ Evanston can pay me what I’m worth. I’m
volunteerin’, see? My old man was a volunteer. Ever hear of Ham
Maguire?” The mayor shook his head. “You ain’t been around much,” Paddy
decided.

                *       *       *       *       *

Ex-Lieutenant Maguire became Glidden fire chief on September first. He
was sworn in, with distressing solemnity, at one o’clock in the
afternoon. At fifteen minutes past two, the members of his crew,
including the captain, were feverishly active with mops, brooms and
whitewash brushes. At four the mayor had received a requisition for one
thousand feet of new two-and-a-half inch hose, two new smoothbore
nozzles, spare parts for the steamer, new harness for the hose cart and
leather helmets all round. At five the new chief had placed his
recommendation for a new alarm circuit.

Paddy fought three fires that autumn, three stiff battles, not to
mention grass fires and a dozen chimneys, one blazing tar kettle, and
other minor chores. When snow piled down he watched it gratefully; not
only did it give protection to warped, brittle old shingle roofs, but it
proved to him conclusively that horses in this country never would be
supplanted by motor apparatus. Owners of cars put them away promptly at
the first snow squall. Drifts piled waist deep in the streets. The few
runs Chief Paddy made were fought through high white barriers.

Each time, returning to quarters, he rubbed down the horses himself and
examined the calks on their shoes.

“Good run you made, Tom,” he came in the habit of saying. “Good run,
Jerry. See how I held your head up? It’s confidence you got. I won’t
leave you fall. Goin’ to hold your heads up tight every foot the way.
’Baccy?”

He poured scrap tobacco into his palm. Tom learning to eat it, snuffed
and munched seriously. Jerry laid back his ears and jerked away his
head.

“I’ll teach you ’fore we’re through knowin’ each other,” Paddy
predicted. “Ain’t no beast o’ mine goin’ to have less bad habits ’n I
got myself.”

It was early spring when the next stranger arrived in Glidden. His name
was John Baxter Crump and he remained a week, asking questions. Paddy
disliked him at once. He was young, for one thing. And the first night
at supper—Frenchie Pete’s old bar was the only place in Glidden to
eat—he talked magnificently of machines. This was a machine age, he told
the three men at his table, one of whom was Paddy. Take furniture, for
instance; men no longer built tables and chairs by hand.

Paddy left the pork chops uneaten on his plate and, stamping out to the
street, kicked up slush with his boots. He knew that kind of talk. It
was bad. Wherever he heard it he could expect trouble. The next week,
gloomily, he read in the Thursday paper that the Crump Table and Chair
Company would build its new plant in Glidden.

Paddy questioned Captain Hicks. He was getting on better with Hicks. The
man didn’t know horses. He didn’t know the feel of reins. He couldn’t
lay a line without kinking it. But he knew how to listen. Paddy liked
good listeners. From Hicks he learned that John Baxter Crump had
appeared personally before Glidden’s city council and demanded, in
return for bringing his plant to Glidden, that they furnish him with
suitable and cheap houses for his workmen and adequate police and fire
protection. Paddy retired to the alarm stand to think that news over.
Well, horse flesh was adequate. But he had an uncomfortable idea that
Crump might not think so.

Before midsummer the walls of the new furniture works were rising. By
fall the factory was under roof and the drying sheds steamed and smoked
as the first birch was ready to season. Before winter, craftsmen began
to arrive with their families, stolid Dutch cabinetmakers from Grand
Rapids who objected to the town as much as Paddy had. Paddy, grudgingly,
had to admit that business picked up during the fall and winter. A new
restaurant opened. The mayor put an extra team at work grading the new
roadway to the plant. The county supervisors advertised for bids for a
new bridge. The council, after months of discussion, in which young
Crump participated as heartily as old Paddy, bought five hundred feet of
new hose for Paddy’s fire department.

In the spring there could be no argument. Glidden was on the boom.
Steamships added an extra hour to their stops at the pier while they
loaded crated tables. Fresh paint flashed a message of prosperity from
the old frame buildings on Front Street. A real estate subdivision was
laid out. And on May thirtieth one of the drying kilns at the Crump
table factory caught fire.

Crump was perturbed; even nervous about the blaze. He howled more loudly
than Paddy Maguire, while Paddy hurled two streams of water and cursed
the heat. The fire was stubborn. Paddy led in the first line. His three
men followed with the second. The steamer trembled and spit a high
column of sparks. The new hose throbbed. Smoke hung ominously over the
plant. Paddy drank it in thirstily and after a half-hour workout had the
blaze subdued.

At the next council meeting Crump appeared. He seemed displeased at the
way Paddy had put out his fire. He complained to the officials that they
had promised fire protection. The council sent for Paddy. He took his
time in getting there. But he opened the door to hear Crump say:

“And I nearly burn up while a horse-drawn engine—horse-drawn—my Lord, in
this age—stumbles out to the plant. We need motor apparatus and high
pressure mains. This department is a disgrace. Whoever heard of a
volunteer chief? If you want me to put up a second unit at the factory—”

“Did you ever try to run a blasted automobile through a snow drift neck
deep, mister?” Paddy flared. “High pressure mains is the berries, so
much I admit. But they’s damn’ little water flows through them when
they’s froze tighter’n a eskimo’s ear. This here’s the north country, it
ain’t Floridy or nothing. You can be modern as to who pulls the whistle,
mister, but you can’t get rid of them horses!”

The council listened to Paddy. Then they listened to Mr. Crump, and
found him more eloquent. After all, one can’t ignore threats to take
away business. Hadn’t Glidden been idle for years? They invited
equipment salesmen. For weeks the discussion went on; in its midst a
deserted mill burned. Fire, discovered early in the morning, was howling
through the roof before the alarm bell struck.

The newspaper said: “Flames were beyond control when discovered,” but
Crump merely pointed to the ruin and said it spoke for itself. Two of
Paddy’s company, on a ladder against the north end, fell with the wall.
They were dragged out, blistered and beaten.

The men who took their places reminded Paddy unpleasantly of the
mechanics who supplanted his old crew on Steamer 189. They belonged in
garages by trade. About the quarters they talked incessantly of motors,
of miles per gallon. Paddy found work aplenty for them in the stable.

“A blasted motor ain’t got sense, devil ’em, and it ain’t got feelin’s,”
he would say. “But you’d heap it with motherly love, to hear you talk,
and that near horse on the cart ain’t had a good rubdown in a week!”

Hicks, suddenly becoming talkative, was inclined to side in with the
newcomers. Paddy silenced him.

“The less you say the better I like your talk,” he affirmed. He became
personal. “How’d you look takin’ exams for captain? A captain! Wouldn’t
know you from a ree-cruit!”

He stuffed his pipe with tobacco, which he forgot to light, glowered,
and stamped out into the street.

At the council meeting that was to decide on the new apparatus, the
omnipotent Crump repeated his demands. Again the council listened with
attention. Paddy had argued publicly with Crump the night before in
Frenchie Pete’s place. He had called him a blasted tablemaker and been
dubbed a volunteer fireman in return. The council of Glidden, declaring
that John Baxter Crump and no one else had brought back their declining
town to the high estate of its timber days, went on record five to two
for a new motor pump. The citizens already had voted by a four-fifths
majority to issue bonds and put in high pressure water mains.

Paddy clumped up the aisle.

“I quit a better job’n this, wanst, for less excuse,” he said
combatively. “They ain’t room in the same quarters for me and one o’
them gasoline rigs. If you think they’s anybody else in this town can
fight fire better’n me, all right, hire ’em. I’m out. Here’s my
resignation and be damned to you. Pay some money for somebody else. I
won’t starve. I got a pension.”

He added insultingly:

“Hire some smart fireman like Hicks. Let him crank your blasted tin
pumper. Not me! I’ll be on hand some snowy day to laugh. Takes flesh to
buck snow.”

He stamped out of the hall.

“Sorry I’m leavin’,” he told Tom and Jerry. “They’ll be sellin’ you for
a milk wagon, mebbe. Kick ’em, I say. Kick ’em right out their
corduroys. Half a cent I’d turn fire bug!”

                *       *       *       *       *

He returned to his lodgings and got the handbag down from the closet
shelf. He packed it that night. But for some reason or other that he
couldn’t explain, he did not leave Glidden. Boats came and went; he
planned each time to take the next one. He was uncomfortable in civilian
clothes. Hands in pockets, he moped about town, watching mains for the
high pressure system extend, new hydrants thrust out of freshly dug
earth, rusty at first and then crimson and resplendent. He saw the new
motor pump, a handsome five-hundred gallon outfit, back into the doors
of the engine house, and the inefficient Hicks rise from his undeserved
rank of captain to the dignity of Paddy’s badge of chief.

He confided in no one. What was the use? He could predict to himself
what would happen. Wait until there were four feet of loose blowing snow
some winter night.

One day, walking past the engine house, he discovered with a swift pain
in his heart that the old Nott steamer had been trundled into the lean-to
at the rear. The four horses, confused and disheartened, were working
in the department of streets and alleys. Paddy often saw them, patiently
standing by the curb. Always he offered them tobacco, patted their noses
and cursed them affectionately.

At the demand of Crump, two additional men were sworn into the fire
department, making a crew of six. Paddy read the news in the paper.

“Aye, and they’ll need ’em, devil ’em,” he growled. “Some nice cold
winter night they’ll need all the bright lads they can find. Takes a lot
o’ good old-fashioned elbow grease to push that pumper uphill. Think I
won’t laugh? Ha! They’ll hear me if they’re a-bed with pillers on their
ears.”

He fished some that summer, without enthusiasm or much luck. He hunted
rabbits all winter, shot one red fox and spent occasional evenings by
the stove in the harness room of the livery barn. What else was there
for a decent man to do? His two-prong beard lost its stiff severity. His
shoulders sagged. The city officials bought a snow plow in November, and
to Paddy’s consternation, the streets were kept clear. The new pumper
rushed out with midsummer ease in dead of winter. Paddy swallowed
fiercely and waited. Time would come!

He was disappointed in December. Weather was cold, but not unpleasant
enough to make transportation difficult. There were a dozen thaws
instead of one in January. Then, on February twenty-sixth, a great blow
out of the north pushed snow before it.

It began at night and pounded the coast for three howling, bitter days.
Down in the river the current, that struggled so energetically to reach
the lake, gave up the effort and muddy water thickened into ice. High
glistening bergs piled tenaciously on the shore of the bay and draped
themselves in fantastic shapes across the piers.

The temperature went down—down—zero—ten below—fifteen...

Light snow, swept in from the hills, piled in great ridges in the
streets. Paddy watched the sorrel team and the grays dragging grading
blades on Front Street. The new rotary plow was laid up for repairs, eh?
No surprise in that. He noticed Jerry was limping on the right front
leg; he crossed the road and examined the hoof.

“That the kind of footwear they give you, is it?” he objected. “Shoe
don’t fit you no better’n’d it would me.”

At the engine house Chief Hicks and his five men labored industriously,
shoveling a track left and right from the doors.

“Devil ’em,” Paddy snorted. “They’ve been lucky!”

On the fourth morning at eight o’clock the temperature stood at eighteen
below. The wind had fallen, leaving a sharp, quiet cold. It bit deep
into Paddy’s hard face as he thrust it exploringly out of doors. The
town lay in snow-packed panorama before him. Kitchen chimneys spouted
small jets of blue vapor.

The air was glassy, sounds magnified, distant rustlings took on noisy
importance. Voices from far up the street floated clear and sharp. Paddy
sniffed suspiciously; then ripped off his ear muffs.

He smelled smoke. And from Front Street, blocks away, shrilled the cry
of a siren. The new motor pump was going out. Paddy looked at his watch.
It was eighteen minutes past seven. He hurried back into the house and
reappeared quickly in an extra sweater. He broke a path along the
drifted sidewalk. It was hard going; snow piled over his boots. The
siren cried enthusiastically for another moment; then its sound trailed
off.

“They’re shovelin’, devil ’em,” Paddy snorted. This was the day of his
laugh.

Again the siren squealed. Again stopped. Hit a snow bank, eh? In high
spirits the ex-chief turned into the main street. Men were laboring
frantically a block away. The great red pumper had burrowed deep into
the side of a high drift. Paddy hurried. He saw snow shovels flashing.
Citizens were helping. Let ’em if they wanted to. The town could burn.
He’d not lift a hand.

Over the bundled heads of the crowd, beyond the low skyline of the
business section, he noticed for the first time the ugly blue smoke
cloud rising. From the Crump table works! He laughed, unsteadily. Hicks,
at the wheel of the pumper, heard the sound. He glanced Paddy’s way,
scowled, and looked aside quickly. The machine jerked forward. It
plunged on doggedly, its immense power thrusting aside the breastworks
of snow. Hicks grinned over his shoulder. Paddy sobered. He’d laughed
too soon, maybe. The pumper made better time now. Down the steep hill
and around the corner. Paddy began to run.

In the lowlands at the harbor side a warehouse stuffed with finished
product smoked energetically. No blaze showed yet. Workmen in black,
huddled groups, wavered in the snow. They scattered out of the way and
the spirited pumper plunged toward one of the high-pressure hydrants
that poked through the drifts. Its red frost box, filled with straw, was
flung off.

Firemen were hooking up the hose, two lines to each valve, each line
siamesed, to give four nozzles. Paddy nodded; he’d taught Hicks
something; he’d do it that way himself. The black hose of the old
department and Paddy’s five hundred feet of new white line were yanked
through drifts toward the warehouse.

Slow. Mighty slow. Paddy stamped his feet. A good crew could lay ten
lines of hose while these johnny-jump-ups were fumbling there. From the
six men of the company and their anxious volunteers floated back cries
for help and exclamations of distress. Paddy saw the hydrantman jerking
frantically at his spanner. No water.

The shrill, unsteady laugh of the ex-chief rang across the lowlands. The
high pressure mains were frozen. Crump’s own mains!

“Devil ’em, now will you learn?” screamed Paddy Maguire. “You and your
kids with their tin toys. Modern, eh? Hey, water!”

Crump panted down the road. Townsmen were milling about. The table maker
shouted incoherently at the new chief. Hicks was arguing. Arguing?
Hicks? Paddy chuckled. Hicks wouldn’t argue, he didn’t know how! The
ex-chief moved closer.

A second hydrant was tapped; it, too, was frozen. Flame broke through
the north end of the warehouse. Timidly at first, in a cloud of black
smoke, it tested the cold air, then leaped up exuberantly.

“Get that pumper to the river, down to the river!” Crump was shouting.

“Can’t make it!” It was Hicks. “That road—can’t get over it—snow—loose
gravel. Can’t get near—”

Crump recognized Paddy as he charged by. He glared indignantly. Paddy
chuckled again; with effort this time. It was his day to laugh, all
right. They needed water. Needed it quick. He could tell them a thing or
two yet if they asked him...

“Let ’em go, devil ’em!” Paddy told himself grimly. “Learn ’em a bit or
two. That gang of chauffeurs never et smoke!”

Fire ran along the ridge of the warehouse. Heat, rolling down past the
eaves, started the snow to sliding. Paddy, observing the fire
critically, gave it ten minutes. Then it would burst through all four
sides. The roof must fall. The warehouse stood close to the main
building; too close. They’d better get water on the bigger building. Wet
it down.

Again he tried to laugh. It was harder than before. He must look pretty
standing here on the sidewalk; must look like a blasted cop. Him, a
fireman! Sight of Crump, staring up toward town, kindled his spleen once
more. He swore, mightily. He’d not help. Heaven be witness, he’d not
help!

“That plug’s froze, too!” a volunteer charged past him shouting.

“You’re losing time!” Crump bellowed.

“Do it yourself then!” Hicks retorted.

Paddy laughed, disagreeably. Hicks was learning, all right; learning to
talk back. He’d believe Crump next time, would he?

“Mains is froze,” the new chief was crying. “Can’t get the pumper to the
river, can’t drive there. I sent for the old steamer. Maybe horses can
pull through.”

“Aye, maybe, devil ’em!” Paddy howled.

He plowed back to the corner. For a moment he could see only more men
tracking down the steep highway. Then the team. His team! His heart
clawed fiercely into his ribs. Here they came! On a slow, rocking horse
gallop.

The driver, a young mechanic from the new department, was leaning far
forward, feverishly tapping the bell. The horses plunged out of step.
The reins lay slack upon their backs.

“Hey, you damned housemaid!” Paddy yelled. The team was still a block
away. “Hold ’em, I say. Hold ’em! Lean back! Hold up their head! Hold
’em!”

“They’ll go—on that corner. Ow, and look at the ape!”

He plunged through the drifts toward the steamer. Smoke seeped out of
its funnel above the vertical boiler. A fat volunteer in a red cap was
stoking the fire on the swaying hearth. Tom and Jerry, heads up, heads
down, galloped fiercely. The bell tapped excitedly—too excitedly.

They reached the corner. The huge engine carriage swayed on its high
rear wheels and short front ones. Snow flew up in opaque screens at both
sides. The driver yanked desperately on the rein for the turn. The
horses, heads free, tried to swing.

“Ow, you’ll kill ’em!” Paddy yelled.

The off horse went down first. The near followed. The weight of the
steamer pressed them forward through the drift. They pawed furiously,
became confused, kicked up a vigorous cloud of snow and lay still. Paddy
halted, to his knees in a snow drift.

“Blaggards!” he howled. “Blaggards!”

The young driver leaped down wildly from his seat. Forgetting his fire,
the stoker jumped from the hearth, and running around the engine, began
impotently to pull at the bridle of the off horse. The crowd pushed in,
hampering.

Paddy flung out his arms and climbed from the snow bank. A short grumble
sounded behind him. Without turning his head, he knew that a wall had
puffed out. Cries of the crowd, warning shouts, hoarse commands, oaths,
floated up the hill, louder than the rumble of the idling motor of the
pumper. Crump charged past. Chief Hicks ran at his heels.

“Put a blanket under ’em!” Hicks was crying. “Give ’em foothold.
Blanket—”

“Devil ’em!” Paddy muttered. “What they know about them beasts?”

He discovered his own feet moving. He reached the circle about the
fallen team. Men were shouting unreasonably, straining, yanking upward
on the horses. Helpless they lay in the snow, immobile except for the
rolling of their great bloodshot eyes and the heaving of their flanks.
Useless harness draped across their backs.

“Get ’em up,” Crump bade.

“Trying,” Hicks retorted.

They tugged again. Crump it was who kicked at the horse nearer him.
Paddy screamed and jumped forward. His split white beard took on
threatening ferocity as he reached for Crump’s collar. He seized the fur
piece with both hands and lifting his foot, booted the younger man into
a snow drift.

“Kick a horse, will you?” he shouted. “I’ll show you, devil ’em!”

He bent over the warm, heaving sides of the team. His cold, knotty
fingers jerked familiarly this way and that. The tangle of harness
somehow righted itself; one buckle open—another tightened. Then Paddy
set his foot on the short forward wheel and swung up to the snug seat.
He held the reins a second in his bare palms.

“Get down, you crazy fool!”

This was Crump. He arose from the drift, spitting snow.

“One side,” Paddy commanded.

He thrust his wrists through the grip loops, twisted the reins one about
each forearm. His face had a pinched, fierce look. His lips sucked in.
Frosty breath blew about his nostrils. His cap hung over his right eye.

“One side, everybody! Like to get hurt.”

He pulled back slowly on the reins.

“Up, Tom,” he bade softly. The harshness had melted from his voice.
Words rolled out smoothly. “Up, Tom. Tom—Jerry—” There was something
crooning in the voice, like a mother’s, singing a lullaby. “Up,
Tom!—Jerry—we’re goin’ somewheres—up—”

His right foot was braced on the steel guard of the footboard. His left,
searching, came to rest contentedly on the trip of the old single tapper
bell. He pressed, and one short note sounded quietly. Then another.

“Up, Tom—up, Jerry—”

It was command now. He was dragging backward on the reins. His
shoulders, rounded under his thick sweaters and coat, strained,
pulled—strained backward, a quarter inch—another quarter.

The team scuffed its hooves. Ears shot up, stiff as the two sharp horns
of Paddy’s beard. The voice was familiar; the touch on the reins was
right. Nostrils dilated. Bloodshot eyes rolled. Flanks heaved
mountainously.

“Up, Tom—Jerry.”

The voice persisted. The bell tapped faster. Snow screened the miracle.
There was a riotous tangle of hooves, manes, tails, a quick writhing
motion. Then the drift scattered; came the clang of sharp calks on
cobblestones.

“Up, Tom—up, Jerry—goin’ somewheres.”

Paddy, from his high seat, peered down sharply at the harness, a short,
expert appraisal. It would do. Get them there. Ruined, but do this trip.

“Out the way, you blasted tripe! Where’s that lazy stoker? Get on! Get
to work!”

The bell set up a quick, nervous cadence. The horses pawed. Paddy leaned
forward.

“Careful, Tom. That’s it! Head up, Jerry. That’s steppin’.
Care—ful—that’s the boy—easy—easy—now—”

The old tea kettle rolled triumphantly down the sharp decline toward the
river. Its bell rattled a curt, contemptuous greeting to the helpless
motor pumper. Paddy drew in cautiously as he reached the bridge. The
rear end of his steamer swung to the left, caught, threatened to turn
over, and righted itself.

The team left the road, stepping confidently. They had hold of
themselves now. Smoke in brown and yellow clouds streaked over their
high heads, shutting out the light of the morning sky. It enveloped
Paddy in its kindly embrace, Paddy and the steam engine and his team.
The river lay ahead, a treacherous surface of weak, snow-covered ice.
Heat pelted down the wind.

The engine turned, backed, turned again, once more backed.

“Good enough, Tom. Thankee, Jerry.” Paddy relaxed in his seat, eyed the
blazing warehouse for five seconds, then leaped down.

As he ran alongside he glanced at the steam gage.

“Pound ’er,” he commanded the man on the rear step. “Give ’er hell. Hand
on that suction there. Gimme the ax. Here, you—you fool, take this ax,
cut hole in ice.” He stared closely. “You, is it? You’re a good runner.
Cut hole, I tell you.”

He thrust the ax forward and Crump took it. Paddy yanked open the stiff
buckle of the suction pipe strap and jerked up the brass screen from the
rear step. With the pipe between his knees he spun the screen into place
at its lower end. The other he threaded into the intake valve. Sound of
the ax ceased. Small cakes of ice floated in the break on the hard
surface of the stream. Crump was crawling up the bank. Paddy thrust the
screen down toward him.

“Take this. Stick it in—under, I say. Never mind gettin’ wet. That’s
it!” He glanced again hastily at the steam gage. “Line now—two lines—bit
o’ help here—”

Firemen and townsmen dragged the hose from the frozen high-pressure
hydrant. Clumsily, with fingers stiff inside their thick knit mittens,
they passed the lines into Paddy’s bare, outstretched hands. He accepted
them without thanks.

“Turn loose that team,” he cried suddenly. “Unhitch it!”

He gave the order without a bend of his head. The lines were in place.
Slowly the pistons of the pumps began to travel. Like short legs dancing
to a quick uncomfortable cadence they kicked up and down. Steam wheezed.
Water gurgled. The hose line leaped full of life. Leaky couplings
spurted, while over the face of the sky hung the dark cloud of smoke,
whipping past on the new gentle wind, like black pennants of
destruction.

“Hey, you!” Paddy’s voice pitched up again. Command was in it, command
usurped by the fierce heat of anger. “Hey, you! Didn’t you hear?
Exercise them beasts. Blankets on ’em! Walk ’em up and down! Up and
down! Cool ’em gradual. Want ’em to die?”

A bookkeeper from the table factory had been standing in front of him.
The order fell first upon him; he obeyed instinctively. Disobey this
maniac? He gripped the team’s reins awkwardly.

“All right, men!” Paddy bellowed.

He charged the fire with the first sputtering nozzle. Flame leaped with
triumphant exclamations from the tottering warehouse. It played in
spirals about the northern eaves of the main building, stole subtly into
windows on the second floor. Paint blistered on the long wooden sign
above the ridgepole. Bursting glass fell in slices.

Paddy’s arms hugged the brass nozzle. He ran ahead forty paces. Heat
assaulted him. He hesitated long enough to look back. Second line was
following, all right. His hard stream lifted in a stiff arc and raked
the side of the main building. Steam burst in jets from the hot brick.
Brown smoke turned gray. The second line came abreast of the first.

“Wet that roof!” Paddy commanded the men who carried it. “Keep ’er wet.”

Again he slashed the hot side. There was less steam now. The warehouse
roof still held, but fire broke through its four walls. Nothing could
save this structure; only if he could cool the near end, make it burn
slowly, he might save the main building.

“Lift her up,” he bellowed. “Give me a hand here—here—the nozzle—up!”

He turned the force of his stream upon the warehouse. The second line
could keep the main building wet. Crouched in the snow, assailed by cold
that gnawed his fingers and toes and heat that chewed his face, he
aimed. Twice he turned his head. Tom and Jerry, under their blankets,
were walking slowly up and down. Cooling off gradually. It was like
these blasted mechanics never to think of the horses, let ’em stand
stock-still after all that workout.

“Up a bit with that nozzle,” he bade.

Volunteers sprawled submissively behind him. The north wall of the
warehouse had fallen. Then the east wall. The new wind was shifting,
pulling around from the lake. There was less heat.

“No layin’ back!” Paddy commanded hoarsely. “Up a bit. Goin’ to drown
it.”

Speech caught in his baked mouth. Indistinctly he saw the second line,
released from the main building by the veer of wind, pull in beside him.
One hour passed, two. The north end of the roof fell.

The south end held.

Fire retreated before the onslaught of water. Paddy eased closer.

It was late afternoon, with a gray hood buckling over the sky when the
ex-chief released his nozzle. A heap of black cinders, shaken down
through the grates of the old Nott firebox, steamed in the snow. Sparks
still shot from the wide mouth of its stack. Its faithful pistons still
kicked up and down in their monotonous, dancing cadence. In a barn close
by, Tom and Jerry scuffed their hooves contentedly, each belted warmly
in a blanket.

“Thankee, Tom. Thankee, Jerry,” Paddy said. “Good run you made, Tom.
Good run, Jerry.” He patted their noses with his left hand; his right
was frozen, he had discovered. From his pouch he drew a fistful of scrap
tobacco. “Here y’ are,” he croaked. “Eatin’ terbaccy, devil ’em.”

The team chewed solemnly. Both had learned.

“Ah—Chief.”

It was Crump’s voice. The mayor followed him.

“I owe you an apology,” the table maker said. Paddy stared at him
sharply. The man’s face was haggard; he might have been fighting fire
himself, the way he looked. “An apology,” Crump repeated.

“About a dozen or so,” Paddy answered. He kept his hand fondly on
Jerry’s back. “An’ the same amount to the beasts here.”

“We were a little—I might say—precipitous in our action regarding the
horses,” Crump went on. “I realize that, ah, perhaps.”

“They ain’t no perhaps to it!”

“But let that be. Here’s a proposition. You go back. Take over the job.
Those are good boys there, but we need a man with experience.”

“That’s what you do, mister. Experience and some sense.”

“So if you’ll take over the job....”

“Me? I quit. Me and the beasts quit. We was just lendin’ a hand.”

“Good enough,” Crump agreed. “You did just that. But we want to be sure
you and the beasts will be on the job next time. Keep the horses. Oh,
yes, keep the modern equipment, too. But we might need that steam engine
again, and I know we need you. I’ve sent a man up to get the stalls
ready. If you’ll have one of the boys drive them back—”

“Drive my horses? Nigh kilt them comin’ down.”

“You mean—”

Paddy stuffed tobacco into his own mouth.

“If the beasts go back, I got to go too,” he consented. “Them ree-cruits
don’t understand good flesh. They think brass and nickel plate and
gasoline puts out fire. What they know about horses? Tom and Jerry don’t
relish a lot o’ clumsy mechanics rubbin’ ’em down. They like me. Me and
them is friends. I got to go back if they do, to keep ’em comfortable in
their mind. We’re built same way. No gasoline in us. We got the stuff.”
He turned on the mayor. “Know what saved your good for nothing town?”

“You!”

“Flesh,” Paddy corrected viciously. “Not me. Flesh.”


[Notes on the Text: This story appeared in _Adventure Magazine_, August
15, 1928. It is believed to be in the public domain in the United
States; copyright status may differ in other countries.]




*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79518 ***