“I think I’ll land him this time,” murmured Mr. Newton. “I’ll not run my head into a Chinese den again, though. He seems to be heading for a respectable part of town. I guess our trick’s going to work.”
It was now about ten o’clock. Noddy had reached Union Square, and was crossing the small park near Broadway. Close behind him, taking care not to be seen, was Mr. Newton. There was quite a throng in the streets, and many vehicles.
Suddenly an automobile, the driver of which seemed to lose his head, rammed a trolley car. The crash was heard for some distance, and, though no one was hurt in the accident, it caused a blockade. Noddy halted to see what the trouble was, and Mr. Newton found himself on the outskirts of quite a crowd that was collecting.
Just then Noddy turned, and, by some chance, looked straight at the reporter who was trailing him. One glance was enough for Noddy. He seemed to sink down amid the throng. Mr. Newton made his way farther into the midst of the crowd, but all traces of Noddy were lost. There was no sign of the light hat.
“Well, that’s bad luck!” exclaimed Mr. Newton. “I guess our plan’s knocked in the head.”
Nor was he mistaken, for Noddy did not come back to the chemist’s the next night. The trap had proved a failure.
“I guess we’ll have to let the thing go for a while,” said Mr. Newton to Larry, on the afternoon following the unsuccessful trailing of Noddy. “Election’s coming on now, and we’ll both be pretty busy. I don’t believe the gang will dare to do anything, now that they know we’re after them. I think we can let things rest for a while.”
Larry agreed with this idea. As Mr. Newton had said, there was plenty of work about theLeaderoffice now. There was a three-sided campaign on that year. The Democrats had their candidates, as did the Republicans. Then there was an Independent ticket in the field. These men had a number of issues which they wanted to see win. Altogether it was what politicians call a “hot” campaign.
It was drawing to a close, however. In another week there would come the election, when all questions would be settled.
Larry had his first experience in a big newspaper office during the most exciting time; that is, on an election night.
For several days the older reporters had been making up tables on which the returns were to be set down as they came in from each district. Mr. Emberg and his assistants were working early and late to get things into shape.
Election day passed itself off quietly enough. The political writers were kept busy, telling how things seemed to look according to early information, but as for forecasting who was elected no one could do that. All day the battle of the ballots continued.
TheLeader, being an afternoon paper, was going to issue a morning extra. To get this out the men would have to work all night, in addition to being on duty all day. It was hard on them, but they didn’t mind it once a year.
No sooner had the last edition gone to press in the afternoon than preparations were made for getting out the next morning’s extra. The men in charge of the tables got them ready, spreading them out on large boards. The tables looked like big-sized war maps, with little blocks and spaces for each election district, a place devoted to each candidate, and squares where the total vote might be cast up.
In the different polling places the last ballots were being put into boxes. The clerks and judges, with their eye on the clock, stood ready to call “time,” when the hour of sunset should be marked. The last voters were being corraled. In a few minutes the big contest would be over, all excepting the counting of the tickets.
At each polling place policemen were stationed. It was the duty of the bluecoats to take charge of the ballot box, after the tickets had been counted. The officers had blanks, prepared by the different papers, and these were brought to City Hall, where the tally was taken.
The newspapers had men at this point to make a record of the votes each candidate received. This record was quickly transmitted to the office, either by messenger or telephone.
As he had had no experience at this work Larry was only a sort of reserve man, being held in readiness to be sent out on ordinary news. As the night was dull, except for election, he had a chance to see how the paper got the returns.
At the big tables half a dozen men were stationed, anxiously waiting. With pencils poised they stood ready to jot down the figures under each candidate’s name. It was very quiet, and there was no excitement. Each man knew what he had to do, and was ready to do it.
In rushed a messenger. He carried a long slip. This he handed to the man at the first table, the “caller-off.” “Seventeenth assembly district,” cried the reporter, and then in low but distinct tones he read each candidate’s name, and gave his vote. In the proper squares the markers set the figures down. There were several sets of tables, and, as soon as one was filled, the slip was passed to the set of men at the next one.
In this way hundreds of districts were recorded. Through the night the work went on. As soon as a district was completed the talliers would cut it out from the sheet, and call off the figures to another man, who sat at an adding machine. This man quickly computed the total vote, and it was set down.
Then the section of table was rushed upstairs to the composing room, where the printers quickly, on their type-setting machines, made a duplicate of it.
Toward the end the work became hard and tiring. The returns came piling in, and the nerve tension under which the men worked was tremendous. But there was little excitement.
Finally the returns were all in. Then came the tedious task of figuring the totals, for on this depended the result of the election, and finding out which party had won.
“Click! Click! Click!” went the adding machines. Number after number the reporters called off. Upstairs in the composing room the type-machines were working overtime.
Everyone was under a great strain. Seconds seemed like minutes. At times, during a lull, the ticking of the clock sounded like the firing of a rifle. In corners of the room experts were figuring pluralities and majorities. Other reporters were writing interviews with winning or losing candidates. Still others were describing the scenes on the streets, the torchlight processions, the happenings at the political headquarters, and telling what the effect of the Board of Aldermen changing from one party to the other would be.
There was not an idle person in the room. The city editor was here, there, everywhere. He seemed to be carrying the responsibility of a dozen men. He was telling everyone to hurry, as it was time for the morning extra to be out on the street.
At last the final additions were made. The last computations were completed.
“The Independents have won!” was the cry.
“Hurrah!” came the shouts from outside.
The last form was sent down. The stereotypers were working like mad. The hungry presses were waiting. The engine was at full steam.
Out from the casting machine came the half-curved plates of type from which the papers were to be printed. Half-naked men clamped them upon the cylinders. They contained the thousands of figures that told the story of the battle of the ballots. The last plate was slapped into place.
“All ready!” cried the foreman.
A bell rang. The engine started. There was a subdued roar. There was a rattle, a bang, a throb of the basement floor. Then came a shrill screech as the belts gripped the wheels, and the machinery started. In another instant the roar became a steady thunder, and hundreds of papers a minute began falling from the presses.
The election extra was out.
It was just getting dawn when the reporters, editors, and copy readers, who had worked so hard on the extra, stopped, and had a breathing spell. Down in the street the newsboys were crying their wares in shrill tones. The thoroughfares were almost deserted, however, save by a few night-workers who were hurrying home. In a little while, though, they would be thronged by crowds anxious to buy papers, to scan the returns, for not everyone remains up late enough to find out who is elected.
Larry thought, now that the paper was out, there would be a chance for all hands to go to bed, and get some sleep. But as theLeaderwas an afternoon paper, and the election extra was a sort of side line, the entire force, without having had a wink of sleep, had to turn in and get ready for the regular issue.
“But before we do that we’ll have breakfast,” remarked Mr. Emberg. So he took the crowd of reporters to a nearby restaurant, where some hot coffee and wheat cakes with maple syrup made everyone feel a bit fresher, though there were many sleepy eyes in the city room that day.
Larry thought he never would be able to stick it out. Every now and then, in the midst of his writing, he would find his head nodding toward the desk, and he would just catch himself in time. He looked around somewhat sheepishly at such times, but no one seemed to be noticing him. As a matter of fact everyone else had momentary failings.
Aside from going over the returns, and making some corrections, getting interviews from defeated candidates and leaders who told how they had been whipped, and talks with successful ones, who told how the people were sure to be benefited by the new party, there was not much news that day.
A few fires, none of them very big, several robberies, and a number of accidents, one of which proved fatal, made up the day’s happenings. Usually a general lack of news was something to be regarded as an undesirable happening, but the day after election even the editors were too weary to want many items.
The paper closed early that afternoon, and Larry went straight home, ate a hearty supper, and then tumbled into bed. He slept like a top until the sun, streaming in at his window, awakened him, and then he felt as if a few hours more would have done him no harm.
But he felt freshened up, and, making a hearty breakfast, went to the office. He was among the first to arrive. Mr. Newton was there, busily engaged in writing at his desk. He looked up when Larry entered.
“Anything new?” he asked, and Larry shook his head, knowing his friend referred to the deed.
“We’ll have to get busy on that again, now,” spoke Mr. Newton, coming over to where Larry was. “It will not do to let the gang think we have given up.”
“But what can we do?” asked Larry.
“We’ll wait, and see if they don’t do something first,” replied Mr. Newton. “They may show us a little more of their hand, and give us a better clew to work on. I guess we can’t depend any more on Mr. Hosfer to help us. He will be suspected by the gang from now on. We’ll have to think up a new plan.”
“Do you suppose they’ll be after me again, to sign the deed?” asked Larry.
“I presume so. They must have your signature, as well as that of your mother. In fact, I doubt if they could get possession of the property, even if you and your mother did sign. You see, it belongs to you, your mother, and the other children jointly. It would be necessary for you all to sign, and, as you and the other children are not of age, your signatures would be of no value. The courts would have to be appealed to to appoint a guardian for you. But the gang evidently think that if they get your signature, and that of your mother, they can pass the deed off for genuine on some unsuspecting purchaser, without waiting for the other names.”
“Have you any idea about why they are so anxious to get the land?” asked Larry.
“Nothing, except I am sure there is some big move afoot in that part of town. It concerns the city, but what it is I can’t learn, though I’ve tried in all the ways I know. I’m only afraid some other paper will find out before I do, and get a beat on me as well as spoiling our chance to get the deed back. But that’s one of the risks you take in this business.”
“Then the only thing to do is to wait?” asked Larry.
“That’s all.”
It was three days after this that a strange letter came, addressed to Larry. And an odd enough one it was. Instead of the address being written, or printed by hand, or on a typewriter, the name, number, and street had all been cut from some paper or book, and pasted on the envelope. It was a slow and laborious piece of work, and the persons who sent it must have had plenty of time at their disposal. At first Larry thought it was a joke.
But when he had opened the envelope, and taken out the single sheet of paper it contained, he was sure it was no joke, but something quite different.
“Phew!” he whistled, softly.
The words in the letter had been cut separately from a newspaper, and pasted one after another to make sentences.
“This is odd,” thought Larry. “I wonder why anyone who wanted to write me a letter could not do it in the usual way. This was a lot of work.”
But when he had read the missive through he was more puzzled than ever. It seemed to be nothing but a lot of words jumbled together. There was no sense to it.
“If it was Valentine’s day, I’d think someone was sending me a new-fashioned kind,” thought Larry. “But as it is, I guess it’s a Chinese puzzle.”
Once more he read the letter through slowly. This is what he saw:
“To impossible the suddenness boy forever who nevermind found whatever the inexperienced paper delivery with upside blue showcase marks satin we lace give devoted you steam one furnace week pencil to ink make Hudson up ever your Brazil mind pig after cows that fencerail look evidently for concise the farm loss plow of cart the automobile small steamboat one teapot who stove bears umbrella the typewriter name ribbon of door a couch martyred dog president lamp he seemingly will purpose be desire taken curtain from when you deliberate when always you regular least sat expect train sign doormat deed impossible at tiger once.”
“To impossible the suddenness boy forever who nevermind found whatever the inexperienced paper delivery with upside blue showcase marks satin we lace give devoted you steam one furnace week pencil to ink make Hudson up ever your Brazil mind pig after cows that fencerail look evidently for concise the farm loss plow of cart the automobile small steamboat one teapot who stove bears umbrella the typewriter name ribbon of door a couch martyred dog president lamp he seemingly will purpose be desire taken curtain from when you deliberate when always you regular least sat expect train sign doormat deed impossible at tiger once.”
“Well, if that isn’t foolish, I’d like to know what is,” remarked Larry.
The oftener he read it the stranger it seemed. Then he turned it upside down, and tried to read it backward, but it was as bad one way as the other.
“I guess I’ll throw it away,” he remarked. “No, I’ll save it, and show Mr. Newton,” he said, on second thought. “Maybe some of the fellows in the office sent it to me for fun. He’ll probably know about it.”
The next morning he took the strange letter to the office with him, having said nothing to his mother about it, for fear she would worry.
“She’d say it came from the Black Hand society, or the Mafia,” he thought, as the papers were full of stories concerning these blackmailers.
“Any news?” asked Mr. Newton, when he greeted Larry.
“Nothing special,” replied the lad. “Someone has been having a little fun with me, I guess.”
“How?”
Larry produced the oddly-constructed letter, and gave it to Mr. Newton. At first the older reporter glanced carelessly at it. Then he looked more carefully over it, and a puzzled look came into his face.
“Can you make any sense out of it?” asked Larry.
“Well, not exactly. That is, not right away.”
“Do you mean you ever expect to be able to?”
“I might.”
“But it’s all nonsense. Just as if I took a lot of words at random, and jotted them down. It reads as good backwards as it does frontwards.”
“Of course it does. That’s the way they intended.”
“Who intended?”
“The persons who sent you this cipher message.”
“Is this a cipher?”
“It certainly is, and it’s evidently a very easy one, or the gang would never have sent it. They evidently want to scare you a bit.”
“Do you think the gang that stole the deed sent this?”
“I certainly do.”
“And can you read what’s in it?”
“Not at once, but I’m going to try. They’re laughing at us, Larry, but we’ll laugh at them soon. Now to solve this cipher.”
Much as he would have liked to go to work on it at once, Mr. Newton was obliged to postpone his beginning of solving the problem. There were a number of stories he had to go out on, and Larry, likewise, was kept busy. It was late in the afternoon when they found a chance to speak of the strange letter again.
“I tell you what,” said Mr. Newton, “suppose you come over to my house this evening, and we’ll tackle the cipher. It may be important for us to solve it as soon as possible.”
“I’ll come,” said Larry.
Mr. Newton lived in a sort of bachelor hotel. He had several rooms, and when Larry called that evening, he found his friend seated at a large table, on which were spread out a number of sheets of paper, several pencils, and some books. In the center of the table was the cipher letter Larry had received, which he had given Mr. Newton that afternoon.
“Are you making any headway?” asked Larry.
“Not very much,” confessed Mr. Newton. “I have been studying the thing, trying to see where to start. Take a look at it yourself, and see if it suggests anything to you. Two heads are better than one, any day.”
Larry puzzled over the paper for several minutes, but was obliged to admit that the more he looked at it the more of a puzzle it became.
“What sort of a cipher is it, anyhow?” he asked. “What is a cipher? I’ve often heard of them, but I never saw one before.”
“A cipher is merely a message from one person to another,” said Mr. Newton. “It is written in such a way as to prevent any third person, in whose hand it may fall, from learning the contents. Each of the persons in the secret has a key to the cipher.
“There are simple ciphers and elaborate ones. There is one used by the United States war and other officials that is very elaborate, and when messages are sent in it, there is a lot of work getting at the real meaning. That is done to prevent enemies learning what the message contains.
“But I do not suppose this cipher is very difficult. The trouble is, it is so simple that it is puzzling. I have tried a number of methods used on fairly hard ciphers, but I can make nothing of it.”
“What in the world do you suppose they wrote in cipher for, anyhow?” asked Larry.
“To try and scare you a bit, I reckon. The more mystery they throw around it the worse they think they have you frightened.”
“How have you tried to solve it?”
“Well, first I went on the supposition that it was a letter cipher. That is, that you must pick out certain letters in each word, and then put them together to make sense. I tried several different methods on this line, but all I get is a lot of words as meaningless as those in the cipher.”
“What are you going to do next?”
“I’m going to take out all the words that seem to have any bearing on our matters. I’ll set them down, and try to make sense of them.”
Accordingly, with Larry to help, Mr. Newton wrote down the following: blue, marks, ink, farm, door, and deed.
“Those are all that I see that concern us directly,” he said. “There is ‘blue,’ for the blue-handed man; ‘marks,’ which he had on his hand; ‘ink,’ which might refer to Mr. Hosfer’s attempts; ‘farm,’ which certainly refers to you; ‘door,’ which is what had the blue mark on it when I went into Chinatown; and ‘deed,’ which is what we’re after. Now we’ll see if I can get anything out of them.”
Mr. Newton tried by combining various letters in each word to get a meaning from the cipher. It was of no avail. Then he started on still another method.
This was to string all the words together so they formed a meaningless jumble of letters.
“Now we’ll go along and take every second letter regardless of the words they are in,” he said.
He did this, and after making several selections, he had this as a result:
OMOSBEHSDENSBYOEEW.
“That’s no go,” he announced, after staring at the combination. “That would never make sense. I’ll try every third letter.”
This time he got:
IOIEEDNSOO.
“Stuck again,” he commented. “Too many vowels to get any words that would mean anything out of that.”
However, he was not discouraged. He tried the same plan, using respectively the fourth to the tenth letter in the conglomeration. But each time he had to admit defeat.
“It gets me,” said Mr. Newton, at length. “If I could only stumble on one or two words I think I could find out the system. The rest would be easy.”
“Have you tried taking every seventh word?” asked Larry. “We boys in the country used to consider seven a lucky number.”
“We’ll try it, just for luck, then,” spoke Mr. Newton. He quickly set down every seventh word, and had this result when he had gone a little way:
WHO DELIVERY WE FURNACE UP COWS THE AUTOMOBILE.
“That’s odd,” commented Mr. Newton. “We can make a sentence of that anyhow. Listen: ‘We, the furnace who deliver up automobile cows,’ though it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Try some other way of taking the words,” went on Larry. “Maybe we’d better begin at the end, and work up.”
“Well, we’ll try your plan for a change,” agreed Mr. Newton. “Take every seventh word from the end. This is what we get: ‘Sign be dog name teapot of evidently,’ and so on. Not much to that.”
Then, in very weariness he and Larry sat staring at the paper which they felt sure contained a hidden message for them.
“Let’s give it up,” suggested Larry. “If they want to send us any word let them do it in the right way.”
“No, I’m not going to give up so easily,” said Mr. Newton. “I’ll have another try at it. Hand the cipher over.”
Larry, who had been scanning the mysterious paper, passed it across the table to Mr. Newton. To do so he had to move it in front of a drop gas lamp. As the paper came between Mr. Newton’s eyes and the light the reporter gave a sudden cry. He fairly grabbed the paper from Larry, and looked at it closely. He seemed somewhat disappointed. Then he held it up to the light again.
“Did you put those marks on this?” he asked of Larry.
“No, what marks?”
“These tiny dots on the back.”
“I haven’t touched the cipher,” said Larry, wondering what Mr. Newton meant.
“Then I think I have it solved!” exclaimed the reporter. “I wonder I didn’t think of this before. Come here!”
Larry came around to that side of the table. He looked through the half-transparent cipher, and saw below certain of the words a small, black dot. The dots were made on the back of the document, and only showed through when it was held to the light.
“We’re on the track at last!” cried Mr. Newton. “Here, Larry, you write down the words I call off.”
Then, with fingers that trembled so he could scarcely hold the pencil, Larry set this down:
“To the boy who found the paper with blue marks we give you one week to make up your mind after that look for the loss of the small one who bears the name of a martyred president he will be taken from you when you least expect, sign deed at once.”
“To the boy who found the paper with blue marks we give you one week to make up your mind after that look for the loss of the small one who bears the name of a martyred president he will be taken from you when you least expect, sign deed at once.”
“What does that mean?” asked Larry.
“We’ll soon see. The first sentence is easily enough set off. ‘To the boy who found the paper with blue marks.’ You see, they have simply used every other word in the cipher. It was so easy it was hard. Now, then, we’ll go on. ‘To the boy, etc.,’ that means you. The next sentence reads: ‘We give you one week to make up your mind.’ The rest reads, properly punctuated: ‘After that, look for the loss of the small one who bears the name of a martyred President. He will be taken from you when you least expect. Sign deed at once.’”
“What does that mean about the small one bearing the name of a martyred president?” asked Larry.
“First consider who were the martyred presidents,” suggested Mr. Newton.
“Well, there were Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, and William McKinley,” replied Larry.
“Is there anyone in your family with either of those names?”
“Let me see—of course—there’s Jimmy—James. But why do they refer to him?”
“That’s the point,” replied Mr. Newton, “why do they? I wish they had not.”
“Why?”
“Because this looks as if they meant to make trouble, and force you to do what they want. It is nothing more nor less than a threat to kidnap your little brother.”
“Kidnap Jimmy?”
“That’s what they practically threaten unless you sign the deed.”
“But how can they kidnap persons in New York, with so many police around?”
“Haven’t you read enough in the papers of late how it is done?” answered Mr. Newton. “It is very easy, especially for some Italian gang. I would be on my guard if I were you, and tell your mother to have an eye out for Jimmy at all times. But don’t scare her.”
“What good would it do if they did take Jimmy?”
“You’d find out soon enough,” answered Mr. Newton. “How long do you suppose you would refuse to sign, or your mother—how long do you think she would refrain from signing, if she knew by doing so she could get Jimmy back? We are fighting a desperate gang, I’m afraid, and we’ll have to be on our guard. Be careful of every move, be suspicious of all strangers, and keep a lookout for the blue-handed man.”
“Can’t we notify the police?”
“Oh, we could, but it would be worse than useless. In the first place we have nothing but suspicions and vague threats. The police could not act on them. Besides you couldn’t have a bluecoat detailed to watch Jimmy all the while.”
“I wonder what we had better do,” mused Larry, who was much alarmed over the turn things had taken.
“We have several days yet,” said Mr. Newton. “They give us a week to make up our minds. In that time something may turn up. We’ve done enough work for to-night. Let’s rest until to-morrow.”
So, with his brain filled with thoughts of the possibility of Jimmy’s being kidnapped, and pondering over the strange web he was being tangled up in, Larry went home.
It was with no very easy mind that Larry started for work next morning. Before he left for the office he warned his mother to keep her eye on Jimmy.
“What for?” asked Mrs. Dexter.
“Because there’s been a lot of automobile accidents in the streets lately,” replied Larry. “I don’t want Jimmy to get hurt.”
“I can beat an auto running!” cried the little fellow, who overheard his brother’s warning.
“Well, you’d better not try it,” said Larry. “You might win the first time, if the auto wasn’t going very fast, but the next time the machine would beat you, Jimmy, and knock you down, and roll you over in the mud, and, maybe, if it was a very bad auto, it would make your nose bleed.”
“Then I’ll be careful,” promised Jimmy, with rather a frightened look on his face. “I’ll stay close to the house.”
Satisfied that he had frightened him sufficiently to make his little brother keep his promise Larry went to work. All the morning, however, his thoughts were more on the threatening cipher he had received, and on the possibility of Jimmy being kidnapped, than they were on his assignments. Every time the reporters came in from police headquarters Larry was afraid lest they bring in a story of a little boy having been stolen.
But, as the morning wore on, and there was no bad news, Larry began to feel more relieved, and he began to think the threat was an idle one, after all. Still, he recalled that the week was not yet up. He found a chance to talk with Mr. Newton in the course of the day.
“Don’t you think I’d better agree to sign the deed?” he asked.
“What’s the matter, getting frightened about that cipher?” asked Mr. Newton.
“A little.”
“Well, Larry, I don’t want you to do anything you will worry over. If you think you had better play into the hands of the gang, in order to prevent the possibility of them kidnapping your brother, don’t let me stop you. All you have to do is to insert a notice to that effect in the papers. They are probably watching for it.”
“Do you honestly think they’ll try to kidnap Jimmy?” asked Larry.
“No, I don’t. It would be a pretty serious thing for them to do, mixed up as they are in other crimes. I don’t believe Jimmy is in any danger.”
“Then I’ll not sign,” decided Larry. “I’ll show them I’m not afraid!”
It was shortly after one o’clock, and the first edition had gone to press. There had not been much news, local or foreign, since morning, and the reporters and editors were taking it a little easy.
It was a warm afternoon in early September, and the haze in the air indicated the approach of a storm.
“It would be just like something to break loose now,” observed one of the reporters, who was lazily lounging on a table, puffing at a corncob pipe. “It was just like this one afternoon when that big railroad wreck occurred. We thought we were never going to get any news that day, when all at once we had more than we could handle. That’s always the way when——”
“Boom!” A dull but powerful explosion sounded through the open windows, startling the reporters, and causing the one who was speaking to break off suddenly in his talk.
“Something went up that time,” exclaimed Mr. Newton.
“Are they blasting anywhere around here?” asked the city editor.
“No,” several replied. “That’s an explosion of some sort. Can’t be down at one of the forts, as it sounded too near.”
“Look out that window!” exclaimed Larry, pointing at one that opened on the north side of the office. “See the smoke!”
A dark pall of vapor, like an immense cloud, overhung a portion of the city, seemingly about a mile away from the office.
“It’s one of the gas tanks!” cried Mr. Newton.
Just then the automatic fire alarm in the office, which was connected with the regular city system, began to tap the bell with quick, impatient strokes. There was dead silence in the room while all counted the number of the box.
“It’s 313!” exclaimed a reporter. “That’s the gas works—private box!”
“Newton, you and Larry with Smith and Robinson, jump out on that, quick!” exclaimed Mr. Emberg, grabbing for the telephone on his desk. “’Phone the story in!” he added. “We’ll get out an extra if we have to!”
While he was giving these orders, which the four reporters, including Larry, obeyed at once, the city editor was getting into communication with the art department on the floor below.
“Send a photographer up to the gas works!” he called. “Big explosion there. Try and get a picture for the last edition!”
He hung up the receiver with a bang.
“Anderson, you get ready to take the story over the telephone!” Mr. Emberg went on. “You’ll have to grind it out lively!”
Anderson got several pencils ready, arranged his typewriter with a long roll of paper in it, to avoid the necessity of changing sheets when he began to write, and sat down in front of a telephone that was in a booth, where a small table offered a chance to write out the notes he would take when the story began coming in.
“Jackson, call someone on the ’phone near the gas works, and see if you can get a line on how bad it is. We’ll issue a bulletin. Sneadly, get ready to call up the City and St. Elmo’s hospitals as soon as the victims have had a chance to get there. There’s where they’ll probably take ’em, because they are the nearest places.”
In a few minutes what had been a quiet office was transformed into a hive of activity. The reporters were assigned to their tasks, and those in the city room stood with tense nerves waiting for the first news that might tell of a frightful disaster. Mr. Emberg, like a general planning for battle, had posted all his forces where they could do the best and quickest work.
Suddenly Jackson, who had gone to the ’phone to call up someone near the scene, cried out:
“It’s a bad one, all right!”
“Who are you talking with?” asked Mr. Emberg.
“I’ve got a party on the wire who lives about a block away. He says all the windows in the neighborhood are broken.”
“I don’t care for the windows!” broke in Mr. Emberg. “What do they amount to? Is anyone killed? Find that out, if you can, and tell what happened.”
Jackson listened to what the man at the other end of the wire was saying. Then he called out:
“Some men were cleaning out a tank that had been emptied of gas! Some gas leaked in, and the thing went up! He says he saw a number of bodies thrown away up into the air, and the report is that seven men are killed.”
Before Jackson had ceased speaking Mr. Emberg was writing out a bulletin to be posted outside the office, giving a mere statement of the accident, and announcing that details would be found in the next issue of theLeader.
An instant later the telephone rang again.
“Answer that, Anderson!” the city editor exclaimed. “That’s probably Newton on the wire. Write fast, tell him to talk fast, and make short sentences. We only have a few minutes for the second edition.”
The city editor proved to be a good guesser. It was Mr. Newton at the other end of the wire, and he had a partial story.
Briefly told, the accident was that a dozen men went into one of the big gas-holders to clean from the bottom an accumulation of oil that prevented a free flow of the vapor from the outlet pipe. Before the men entered through a small manhole in the top, all the gas had been drawn off.
That is, it was supposed all the vapor was out, but more either leaked in, or some was generated by the oil in the bottom of the holder. At any rate there was some vapor in the tank. One of the men was using his shovel to scrape some of the dirt from the sides of the holder, when his implement must have struck sparks from the iron side of the tank.
There was a terrific explosion that tore the big tank apart as if it was made of paper, and the dozen men inside were hurled high into the air when the top blew off.
As soon as possible men from other parts of the works ran to aid the unfortunates. Six of the men had fallen back into the tank, and were lying on the bottom. Four had been scattered about the yard, two badly wounded, and two dead.
It was this scene that confronted Larry, Mr. Newton, and the other reporters when they reached the gas plant. A big crowd had collected, summoned by the sound of the explosion, the sight of the big smoke-cloud, and the rush of the fire apparatus. For the latter there was no need, as after the first terrible burst of flame from the tank, there was no more blaze.
However, the firemen with their ladders were soon called on for service. The two wounded men, who had been picked up and carried into the office, were now hurried to the hospital in the police ambulances that had answered the alarm.
“We must get those men out of the tank!” the foreman of the works cried. “There may be some alive!”
A score of men sprang forward as volunteers.
“Bring the ladders!” shouted the chief of the fire department, who always responded to an alarm from the gashouse district.
The firemen ran up with them. Two were placed against the outside of the tank. Up them swarmed several of the “smoke-eaters,” as the firemen are sometimes called. They were preparing to lower other ladders down on the inside when they were forced to come away because of the gas fumes.
Only for a little while, though, did they falter. Coming down they got their smoke-masks, made of fine wire sieves, with damp sponges placed in them. With these over their faces they prepared to brave death to rescue the men who might yet remain alive in the tank.
Down into the shattered holder they went, half a dozen brave men. Into the slimy black oil on the bottom they dropped. Then, working quickly, that they might not be overcome by the fumes that still continued to accumulate in the tank, each fireman shouldered one of the unconscious forms. There was no way of telling the living from the dead until they were carried up, and then down the ladders to the ground.
Swarming up the rungs with their burdens the six firemen came. When they reappeared over the edge of the tank they were met with a loud cheer.
Down to the ground the hapless burdens were carried. Doctors who had been summoned bent hastily over the motionless forms. Coats and jackets, dirty from the oil, were torn open, and skillful hands felt to see if hearts still beat.
“This one’s alive! Hurry him to the hospital!” cried a physician. The man was placed in an ambulance, which set off, the horse galloping swiftly.
The other five were past human aid, having been either burned to death in the sudden rush of flame, or suffocated as they fell back into the holder.
“There were twelve men working in the tank!” cried the superintendent of the works, hurrying up to the chief of the fire department. “We have found only ten. Where are the other two?”
A hurried search was made for the missing men. Larry joined in, as did Mr. Newton. There were several piles of lumber in the yard about the tanks, and behind one of these the bodies of the two unfortunate men were found. One was still breathing, and was hurried to the hospital. The other had expired.
While these things had been going on Mr. Newton was not idle. As soon as he got any facts he ran to a telephone, and sent them in to the office, where Anderson was waiting for them. Larry, Smith, and Robinson aided in collecting the facts, sometimes turning them over to Mr. Newton, or telephoning them in themselves, if he was busy.
In this way the information of how the accident occurred was obtained, and from officials in the office of the works the names of the men were secured. Meanwhile there were busy times in theLeadercity room.
Waiting until he had a fairly good and connected account of the accident, Anderson sat down to a typewriter, and began grinding out copy. He was a fast operator, and the way his fingers flew over the keys was a sight to behold. In short, crisp sentences, but in words that made a thrilling story, he rattled out the account.
Near him stood Mr. Emberg. As fast as Anderson had a paragraph written the city editor would pull out the paper, and clip off what was written. Meantime Anderson, as soon as the paper ceased moving, went on writing.
Mr. Emberg quickly edited the copy, and gave it to one of the messenger boys, who ran with it to the pneumatic tube that sent it to the composing room. There men who operated the typesetting machines stood ready to set up the story.