"THE GREAT SNAKE BEGAN ITS WORK OF DEGLUTITION""THE GREAT SNAKE BEGAN ITS WORK OF DEGLUTITION"It was unfortunate for this particular anaconda that the reptilia are not great reasoners. He should have begun upon the man's head. Then it would have been a simple thing. The man would have been engulfed, the serpent would have crawled sluggishly a hundred yards or so away and begun his period of digestion, and that would have been the end of the incident. Instead of that, he started on a foot, and began swallowing from that point. Now, it is a well-known fact that this swallowing of a body by any of the constrictor family, except as to contraction and eventual suffocation, is harmless, because the jaws of this class of serpents are unconnected. The upper jaw slips forward, hooks onto the body with its fangs and draws it into an enormously distended throat. Then the under jaw slips forward in the same manner, hooks its fangs, and draws it back in the same way. So, inch by inch, a body isengulfed. Anything with a nonsensitive exterior can be swallowed by an anaconda, a boa, or a python without knowing about it until a lack of air becomes apparent.MacGregor wore a pair of very heavy leather trousers he had secured to guard him against the undergrowth with which we had to worry. So the great snake began his work of deglutition, and Alan lay there, unconscious of what was going on. Still that snake swallowed Alan as fast as he could. He swallowed him as far up as the leg went and then stopped, from the simple fact that the rest of Alan lay at right angles across his mouth, and he could not swallow any further. But a snake does not reason much, and this particular anaconda lay there contented, perhaps in his dim way knowing that he had got something good as far as it went, and that he was satisfied. And the process of digestion went on.It was truly a coincidence that we all returned almost together that evening. It must have been about seven o'clock. Malcolm came back from his particular quest without a jaguar. I had failed to find my little animal. The natives had found their fruit, and had gathered a large load, or they would have been in long before us.Then we looked for Alan. To describe the scene that ensued when our poor friend was discovered would be impossible. He was sleeping like a log. We thought him dead, at first, but some one gave him a spat upon the face and shouted, and he leaped, or tried to leap, to his feet, and when he saw what was the matter, he gave one of the most blood-curdling yells ever emitted upon either the North or the South American continent. The snake began thrashing around, but was already in a semi-lethargic condition, and was promptly chopped in two a little below the point where the foot of our poor friend was supposed to be. Then the remainder of the serpent was cut away with much difficulty from the leg which it had enveloped, and a shocking spectacle was presented.It is understood, generally, that the digestive organs of the anaconda are something most remarkable. Here was an illustration in fact. Not only the leather trousers of our unfortunate friend had been digested away, but the digesting process had reached his skin and destroyed it utterly. The bare flesh was all exposed and the skin had followed the trousers. Alan was unable to stand, and was so overcome with horror at his condition, as to be incapable ofsuggesting anything for relief from his immediate predicament or for his future restoration. The raw flesh attracted a myriad of insects, who added all their tantalizing possibilities to the situation. Alan could not bear contact with any sort of covering, and none of us was provided with oiled silk or anything suitable for such an unheard-of emergency. I did not know what to do. I called upon Dr. Jacobson, the eminent scientist of the expedition. Hardly had I asked his advice, before there came the whirr and swish of arrows, and we were in a charming fight in no time. The event, in fact, became almost too interesting, but we managed to drive off the natives and found half a dozen of them, dead or dying in the underbrush. They had carried off most of their wounded.To Jacobson came an inspiration, as he was looking curiously at one of the dead natives. He broke out excitedly:"There's an insensible, dying Indian just about the size of MacGregor. If we work quickly enough, we can do the biggest job of skin grafting ever heard of upon this or any other continent, or anywhere in stellar space as far as you have a mind to go."We did it all with a rush, under the scientist'sdirection. We skinned that half-way nigger's leg, and it was immediately and neatly inflected, adjusted, and stitched upon the leg which had loitered a shade too long in the maw of the anaconda. The dark skin fitted on, and grew to be a part of MacGregor in almost no time. Talk about the "hand-me-down" man who assures the customer that the thing "fits shust like de paper on de vall," well, neither he nor his customer could be counted in with our scientist and MacGregor and a portion of the South American, so lately but so permanently deceased.That is about all there is to the tropical part of this episode. I was present when Alan met his sweetheart again. Soon came St. Andrew's day. MacGregor was to be a prominent figure, and his sweetheart awaited the occasion with pride and hopefulness, and great enthusiasm. She waited, anxiously, until she should see her true love conspicuous, as she thought he ought to be, in the crack organization of those who made part of the parade of St. Andrew's day. There came a moment of intense excitement, both to her and to the somewhat overbearing Scottish group about her. When it was generally understood that the most vaunting, aristocratic,and full-blooded Scots company was about to pass, she watched and watched, watched just for him, to see her great lover stalking nobly in the finest company. Time lagged. Never before had Time so loafed and enjoyed himself in some nonsense by the wayside. Finally, a hundred yards away, came imposing and demanding on the ear-drums the music of the pipes. There wasn't any slogan, because there wasn't any fight, but something almost as appealing to the clean, stubborn, Scottish heart, be it in man or woman. They swung around the corner and into the main street. She saw it all and she knew it all, and looked for Alan MacGregor among those coming barelegged to the fore with the weird music which has for centuries meant ever pluck, and sometimes conquest. Her eyes turned this way and that way, and finally they lit upon her sweetheart. There was no doubt about it. There he was, marching as lieutenant or something of that sort, of the tartaned company, all barelegged from below the kilt a little above the knee to thick stocking just below the knee, all alike displaying this ancient Scottish endurance of field and flood and of anything else. The girl's stately Alan walked grandly in hisplace, clad confidently in the tartan of his clan, and showing his strip of leg about the knee as brazenly as did any other man of the parading Scotsmen.The girl saw him, looked upon him, first buoyant, excited and admiring, then appalled. She saw him lording it abroad among his minions, and, at the same time, she noted that his legs were black and those of the other men white. She could not understand it; it was something ghastly.What had happened was this:It was the morning of St. Andrew's day, and they were gathered in the armory, the hundreds of enthusiastic Scots. The sun's rays shot slanting through the windows, lit upon bonnet, tartan, and sporan, and upon legs bare at the knee, "uncomely fair," as a veteran observed, which was not to be wondered at, as they were thus exposed but once a year, to the intense but concealed discomfort of their shivering but patriotic owners. Ringing-voiced and cheerful among them was Alan MacGregor. He dressed himself in the retiring room, as did the others, and came out in all the kilted glory of his ancient clan. He was a fine figure of a man to look upon, but there was a howlwhen he appeared. The bare patch about the knee of one leg showed white, and on the other, black!"Ken ye what's the matter wi' your legs, mon?" roared a giant among the group; and MacGregor looked down, to realize in a moment his condition. It would never do to march through the streets with one leg black and the other white. In desperation he told his story to his assembled countrymen. There was a groan of sympathy and perplexity, until the tension was relieved by the cry of an inventive young whelp from the Orkneys:"What's the matter with ink?"The suggestion was received with a howl of applause, and, three minutes later, the bare portion of MacGregor's white leg was made to correspond in color with the other.To repeat, in a way, what has been already told, from the armory, the gallant Scotsmen swung upon the street in serried numbers, to march imposingly through streets lined and flanked with thousands and thousands of their fellow-citizens of any birth. They made a spectacle which it was good to see. Each piper "screwed his pipes and garred them skirl," "The pibroch lent its maddening tone," andthe pipes droned and clamored and yelped for victory nearer and nearer all the time. The marchers passed in gallant style. The moment came at last when, with a defiant howl of the pipes, MacGregor's company passed the stand, and it was now that, as has been related, Agnes saw her lover, broad shouldered, cleanly built, and striding with the inherited gait of a thousand chieftains. Eh! but he was fine! For one blissful moment Agnes gazed upon her lover's figure, before she saw his knees. She swooned, and the lady who sat next her applied her salts and led her gently from the scene.It seemed to the Scotchwoman there was but one thing for her to do. When she recovered sufficiently, she wrote this letter to her Alan:Oh, Alan! Are ye no patriot, no product of the Scotsmen of the old time? And I, I thought your blood as blue as the water in the mountain lakes fresh tinted from the sky. Oh, Alan! my Alan! ye looked so braw, barrin' the black breeks ye wore to protect the single patch of ye from the raw weather. Oh, Alan! did our stern ancestors do the like of that? Cared they for squall or flurry or the frost rime? Oh, my Alan! I love ye. Ye ken it well, but we mustnot marry. Think ye I would tak pride in children of the man of the black breeks? I'm gey—sore gey! Your"AGNES."Now note what happened! Now pity me! Alan was heart-riven and wild, and came to me in his distress. I was the only person in the great city who could give authoritatively the story of his brown leg. I was the only person who could re-establish him in Agnes' mind as an ardent Scot. Imagine a mission like that. Imagine a man having to go and talk to a young lady about one of her lover's legs! I don't know how I did it, but certainly I did it. I want to say here and now and frankly—and I don't care whether she reads it or not—that when I first met her, the temperature was far more sultry than we had ever found it upon the Amazon. It dropped many degrees, though, before my story was concluded.Well, they have a boy about two years old, and they have named him after me. I don't know what I'll do to that boy. The little wretch hugs me so strenuously that I believe he is part anaconda.And this ended the story-telling for the day. Their imaginations had been "stretched enough" commented kindly Mrs. Livingston.CHAPTER IXTHE HUGE HOUND'S MOODThe morning of the third day of rude experience opened somewhat more brightly for "the wastrels of the waste," as the Young Lady of the party very nicely designated them, for it had cleared. There remained, however, the thought that the addition to the snowfall must delay the work of rescue, an apprehension which was soon confirmed. Stafford was using the telegraph with no inconvenience now. He had contrived to bring a wire from the main line into the smoking car, and communication from there with those on the relief train was an easy matter. The news that came was not exhilarating. Very slow headway was being made, so the workers beyond the drifts reported. The railroad company had not yet installed the rotary snow-plows which, later, proved most effective, hurling the snow to a distance and clearing the way thoroughly, while the one in use but bored its way through the drifts, only to have a part of the tossed-up mass comewhelming back to the track again. There was a vast amount of shovelling to do, and that took time. The resolute workers "at the other end of the trouble," as the trainmen called it, were not discouraged, but they admitted that they were not attending a midsummer picnic. In fact there was no semblance of a picnic about it. They were not so assured now that release would come to the enthralled on the fourth day, at the latest. They but expressed a glittering confidence that the fifth day, beyond all doubt, would see the end. This assurance by no means satisfied the captive passengers. They felt that the White Jailor still held the keys and had them in his inside pocket.There was much gossip over the emergency line and, despite the somewhat oppressive news, there was infused an element of cheerfulness by this easy, sympathetic communication with the outside world. The car in which the instrument was placed was a magnet, for, though Stafford was the only one on the train possessing sufficient experience to accomplish what he had done, there were some who understood a little of the science of telegraphy and could receive and send messages, after a fashion.Communication between the trains was going on most of the time.Stafford had completed his work at the instrument and returned to his own car, where the usual group, with others who had wandered in, were assembled, amusing themselves as best they could for the after-luncheon hour. He had noted the outline of a woman's head as he entered, and though her face was not toward him, knew very well to whom the fair head belonged. A sudden courageous impulse swayed him to its way, an impulse for which he had reason to be grateful all his life. He advanced and seated himself directly across the aisle from the Far Away Lady, who looked at him and smiled a quiet welcome. He was not quite himself as he began talking to her, but he did well, under the circumstances, and so did she. It was a meeting as delicious as constrained, for this was the first occasion on which they had opportunity to engage in anything like a real conversation. Hesitant, happy but, in a vague way, apprehensive, with a trying past recalled by tones as familiar to each as if five years were but an hour, the two exchanged only commonplaces at first, comment on the curious manner in which they were nowheld from the rest of humanity, or speculation over the immediate prospect. It was all commonplace, or would have been so, if either been able to veil the story of the eyes. Eyes are faithful but sometimes faithless servitors, meaning well and doing ill. None can control them absolutely, lovers least of all.And then their misgivingly sweet communion was ended by what was so inconceivably and suddenly alarming and dangerous that even Stafford was, for a moment, dazed.From outside came the sound of a wild yell followed by what was a man's shout, or rather shriek, of terror, then, commingled with a fierce yelp and growl, a sound of clattering on the car steps a rattling of the door, its sudden violent opening, as a man's form veered away from it and plunged into the snow on the other side, and then the appearance of a Thing which hesitated but a second, then turned and entered the car leapingly, a monstrous brute with fanged jaws agape and glaring eyes and death in his fierce intent. Not the Black Dog of the Marshes, not Red Wull, the murderer of Scottish sheep, not the Hound of the Baskervilles could have presented an appearance more utterly demoniacal.There were cries and shouts of alarm and the occupants of the car were on their feet as the great brute plunged forward. He saw, apparently, but one object. The Far Away Lady had been sitting close to the outside of her seat and it was her white, startled face which drew the red eyes of the charging monster. Two great leaps he made and the third was at her throat.But not so swift the leap as that of the man opposite the imperiled woman. As a panther starts, Stafford shot from his place and was before her. With arm upraised, to shield his throat, he met the full impact of the tremendous force, staggering before it, but not falling. Then began a struggle brief but terrifying.The hound's teeth found nothing as they came together, missing the fending left arm as the man thrust it forward, and coming together viciously as the brute fell back for an instant and leaped again. This time the arm was siezed fiercely as the man's right hand grasped firmly the dog's throat. There was a momentary wrenching and swaying, the dog's hold on the arm was lost and, at the same instant, almost, the hand of the arm released was aidingits fellow in the throat grip, when the fierce wrestle became more even. The dog writhed and twisted madly while the man stood, pale but firm, his legs braced against the seats as he sought a mastery of the folding skin and to bring his hands together until they should find the windpipe and afford a chance of throttling his powerful adversary. The feat was not an easy one, for there were great size and the strength of savage rage to overcome. Growling hoarsely, foaming at the mouth, whining hungrily in its blood-thirst, the brute surged forward again and again, and wrenched and swayed in the effort to free himself from that merciless, seeking hold. So they swung and tottered for a moment, and then, at last, the man found the deadly grip he had been feeling for; he had the windpipe of the beast!Now came another aspect to the struggle. The hound, in peril now, no longer aggressive, for the moment, was fighting for his life. His strength was going. With a mighty effort, Stafford swung him about and backward against the seat, gasping and gurgling. With the utmost strength of his hands the man squeezed and bore forward, at the same time, with all the weight and impulse of his body. The dogtwisted in frightful paroxysms, the red tongue protruded and the eyes stared blindly, but there was too much vitality in the animal for a sudden end of all. Still the man surged forward with all his might, bearing so closely that the hot slaver of the beast was on his cheek and in his hair. The straining lasted for a little time, and then at last came what was certain; there was a sudden yielding, a great final gasp, the big body relaxed and straightened out and the fight was over. Stafford rose weakly upright, assisted by the men who had vainly sought opportunity to assist him in the sudden fight and turned toward the woman who lay faint and white, against the window ledge, with face upturned and eyes unseeing. They carried her gently to her stateroom."THE BIG BODY RELAXED AND STRAIGHTENED OUT""THE BIG BODY RELAXED AND STRAIGHTENED OUT"There was a rush of the passengers to Stafford's side and there were showering thanks and congratulations and all the exclamatory comment which would naturally follow a scene so startling and with such a termination, but one man swept the others aside, with suddenly acquired authority, and demanded an examination of Stafford's hurt. It was the physician of the group, and the wisdom of his action was recognized at once. It was found that thedog's teeth had entered the fore-arm deeply, but the marks were clean and the blood was flowing readily. "It would be nothing serious," commented the doctor, "if it were not for the chance of hydrophobia. Do you think the dog was mad?" he asked of Stafford.And, even as he spoke, something happened, something which, as before, was so unexpected, so alarming, so utterly beyond all ordinary chance, as to rob the men there of the moment's reason. There was a snarl like that of a tiger at their very feet and the dog's neck upreared among them fiercely. He had not been strangled utterly unto death, and had revived to breath and life again. His strength seemed to return to him instantaneously. With a growl which was almost a roar, the beast surged into the aisle, his glaring eyes unseeing at first but, as perception came to them, discerning again but a single object. Their devouring intent was upon a figure just entering the other doorway. The animal's sighted quarry was the effervescent youth who had first made himself generally known on the train because of his air of optimism. He had instant opportunity for an exhibition of all his blithesome qualities.Straight toward the man the dog plunged furiously, in an uplifting leap which was but a hurling of himself squarely at his throat as he had leaped at that thinner one of the Far Away Lady, but the youth lacked not presence of mind, which was illustrated in so diminutive a fraction of a second as to be practically unrecordable. Far and well he sprang from the steps of the car and landed in a drift up to his armpits, falling forward as the dog plunged after him. The beast collided with the railing of the platform and turned and rolled into the snow as he struck the earth, or as nearly the earth as he could go. The snow was above his head, and well it was for the pursued that it was the case. The man plunged ahead, hampered, it is true, but making swift headway in his alarm, straight toward a tree on the ascending slope, a stunted pine which was providentially but a few yards away, while the brute pursuing him plunged wildly about yelping and barking, guided only by scent and sound in his fierce chase. The man had the advantage and what had seemed a prospective tragedy one moment became something very like a comedy the next. It was droll but well was it for the evading man that the snow hehad lately been anathematizing had now become his ally and protector. He reached the tree not much ahead of the raving dog, who was at its trunk in a moment as soon as the pursued came fairly into sight, and clambering to safety upon a lower limb, not very far up but sufficiently high to assure him immunity from the snapping jaws of the beast leaping upward in a vain attempt to reach the perching chase. The youth wound his arms about the bole and dangled his legs down tantalizingly, meanwhile announcing exuberantly to the people who had rushed to the platform that snow was the finest thing in the world, when it was deep enough. All would have been over with in a moment and the youth free to come down from his eyrie but for a sudden interruption, for half a dozen of the passengers had, by this time, secured revolvers from their grips and were about to end at once the career of the raging animal. A shot, which missed had already been fired when the voice of Stafford rang out sharply:"Don't shoot! Don't shoot the brute, yet! I want to know first whether or not he is a mad dog. Wait a few moments."His request was obeyed unhesitatingly, all recognizing its good sense and forethought,while the Gallus Youth called out cheerily: "That's right. I'll amuse him here Mr. Stafford while you diagnose his ailment. It's a good idea. May save a record case of hydrophobia. Try him on, but look out, or 'dar's gwine ter be not only trubble in de chu'ch but discawd in de choir.'"And while the passengers crowded at the windows and on the platforms, Stafford did "try him on." He sent for bread and meat and, stepping down to the lower step of the car, waited until the dog had become silent for a moment and was gazing intently and watchfully upward at his undestined prey, and then called out, attracting his attention. There was a general shrinking back, the majority of the passengers expecting a rush of the animal toward the car again, but to the surprise of all he did not move as Stafford spoke to him soothingly, though he turned his head and showed his teeth. Stafford leaned forward and tossed to the dog's very feet the steaming meat and other food which had been brought and no sooner had the scent reached the nostrils of the beast than, ignoring instantly the man perched in the tree he pounced upon the food voraciously, gulping it down as if he had notfed for months. Stafford called for more and fed the suffering creature until he would eat no longer. Then he called the dog to him, good-naturedly and in an ordinary tone, and, astounding as it was to all, the beast responded, approaching him though somewhat cautiously. Stafford sent for water, and finally the dog lapped it from a pail in quantities which told a story. Dumb animal though it was upon which they were gazing the onlookers could not but sympathize with its evident past distress and recognize what had been the natural consequence. Stafford rose and drew a long breath of relief. Assuredly he had good reason. The chance of hydrophobia was past. "The dog is not mad," he said. "He was only starving and crazed with thirst and raging blindly at everything and anybody. I don't blame the unreasoning beast. How did it happen?"The whole thing was soon made clear. The dog, a dappled monster Ulm, or Siberian bloodhound, had been shipped from San Francisco to the East by an owner to whom the hound was as the apple of his eye. It had been confined in the forward baggage car the man in charge of which had been ill during the train's imprisonmentand had forgotten the beast entirely. The car had not been opened before and the imprisoned animal crazed by thirst and hunger, had gone practically insane with suffering and, upon the opening of the door, had leaped out furiously, in pursuit of the first object upon which it could vent its fury. One man's neglect had resulted in something very close to tragedy.Now the dog was fawning at Stafford's feet. He patted it on the head and the beast followed him into the baggage car again where it lay down contentedly. There was no thought of killing it now. As one man said: "We may be all going mad ourselves before we get out of this." But he created no apprehension.Stafford returned to his car and another examination of his hurt was made. The punctures in his arm were treated by the doctor, to avoid all chances, as he said, and the episode of the dog was ended.CHAPTER XTHE SIRENThe startling episode of the attack of the dog had not sufficed to distract Colonel Livingston's regard from his manifest duty as guide, philosopher and friend to all the incarcerated wayfarers. He was too old a campaigner for that. After the confusion had ceased and comment on the stirring incident had died away, he looked about in austere contemplation. His eyes rested upon the Conductor and Porter, who were discussing something together at the end of the car. He acted promptly."Here," he called out, cheerfully but imperatively, "if you think that this train crew has but one sort of responsibility just now, you are mistaken. Passengers must, under the circumstances, have even more attention than usual. They must be entertained. You must each tell a story. Mr. Conductor, I call upon you first."The conductor was mightily embarrassed. Evidently story-telling was not his specialty.Recognizing, however, the fact that there was nothing for him but submission to the inflexible Colonel, he succumbed, red in the face and twisting nervously his short mustache."I'm not much at telling anything," he managed to explain, "and don't believe I have any story of my own that would be worth while, but I never hear the whistle cut loose that I don't think of what a man I met in San Francisco told me of what has been going on in one of the big cities, and may be going on yet for all I know. I haven't been East of Denver for a long time—that's the end of my run—and, it seems to me, that, if what he told me is true, I'd have seen something about it in the newspapers. Maybe not, though; they miss lots of things. Anyhow, this is what he told me—and I'll try to tell it just as he did, even using some of his big words, about what has been happening with a kind of big whistle to help sailors which they call,THE SIRENHalf a mile off shore, an adjunct of the light-house, was the Siren, friend of mariners and enemy of all the rest of mankind. When the fog came upon the face of the waters and steamersand sailing vessels, creeping fearfully about in all directions, were in danger of collision, with resultant horrors, and shrieked out their apprehensions in strident whistlings, the Siren responded through the opaque waste with a warning howl, telling each seaman where he was and where was safety and where was death. It was a howl of the pitch and key best adapted for reaching a great distance and served its purpose well, yet it was doleful as a sound from the tomb or the wail of a lost soul with a bass voice. But little cared the fog-fretted captains or their crews or passengers for the lugubriousness of the Siren's call. As long as the notes of the misnamed fog-horn indicated the path to safety they cared nothing for the quality of the note.In the city which stood beside the shore, the case was different. People recognized the fact that the great water highways must be made safe and that mariners must be protected, but the burden of the Siren was hard to bear. Little attention had been paid to its sound at first but the constant iteration had told upon mind and body as tells the constant falling of a single drop of water upon the head. People were seriously affected. In the foggy season strongmen became fretful and impatient and weak women were compelled to seek the country. The whole city was threatened with an attack of nervous debility. All night long, and sometimes late into the forenoon, the fog would hang stubbornly above the harbor, and all night long and far into the daylight, the Siren would groan and groan while the people raved. Sanitariums did a thriving business. Some sort of climax was approaching when Hannibal Perkins appeared from the suburbs upon the scene.Hannibal Perkins was a young man about twenty-one years of age. He was born "down East" as he explained, and was tall and gaunt, with pleasant blue eyes and a soft voice. He was ambitious and possessed of an inventive genius which he wished to cultivate. He had graduated from the city high school and desired now to spend two or three years in a famous scientific academy, but could not gratify his wish, because of relative poverty. He helped his father in the work of a small truck farm just outside the city, but there was small yearly surplus to aid in the realization of Hannibal's hopes and plans. There was stuff in the youth, though. Regretting but not dismayed, Hannibal worked doggedly, ever planning as to howhe might raise honestly the needed money. The little farm lay close beside the shore and at night the youth's thoughts were frequently disturbed, for the Perkin's family got the full benefit of the Siren's groans.Not only was Hannibal Perkins an inventor, but he had a musical gift as well. He played the violin with skill and feeling, and had studied with an excellent teacher, a friend of the family who had become interested in Hannibal and given him lessons gratis. He possessed an exquisite ear and it is doubtful if in all the city there was a person who suffered more from the Siren's dismal cry than did this robust young man. Night after night he would toss about in his bed and but endure. "Is there no way of stopping it," he thought. "Cannot the same end be attained in some less melancholy and devastating way?" Unable to sleep regularly, at last, in desperation he set his wits to work.Reading a scientific magazine one day, a single sentence impressed itself upon Hannibal Perkin's memory: "It is a well known fact that a musical sound can be heard distinctly at a greater distance than can an unmusical one." Hannibal pondered much.One night, either because his nerves chancedto be a little more nearly on edge than usual or because the Siren chanced to be in good working order, the sounds which came from the outer harbor seemed to Hannibal more than ordinarily loud and mournful and appalling. He raged helplessly. "What need of so much noise, and such a noise!" he fumed, but, sobering in temper with reflection, tried to content himself with muttering resignedly: "I suppose it's necessary that the thing should be heard as far away as possible,"—then checked his muttering suddenly. The sentence in the scientific periodical had recurred to him. "It is a well known fact that a musical sound can be heard distinctly at a greater distance than an unmusical one." He rose from his bed and sat silent, with wrinkled brow. Gradually the wrinkles disappeared and a light came into the young man's eyes. He sprang to his feet, giving vent as he did so to the single, all unstudied, expression "B'gosh!" He had learned it when a boy "down East" while working in the fields with the hired man.For the next two weeks Hannibal Perkins did little labor on the farm. His time was spent from daylight to dark in a small lean-to which served the double purpose of woodshedand workship. Then for another week, he was in town studying the mechanism of the great church organs—instruments with which he was already tolerably familiar—and consulting with organ-builders and other craftsmen. The fourth week was spent in the little shop again.It was the beginning of one of the foggiest months in the year that Hannibal Perkins, hat in hand, somewhat abashed, but resolute, entered the office of the mayor of the city. He looked curiously upon the man seated at his desk. He saw a person of apparently strong physique, but thin and pale and with glittering eyes, the eyes of a victim of insomnia. The mayor wheeled about in his chair."What do you want?" he asked peevishly.It was not a pleasant reception but, as a matter of fact, the man ordinarily affable was nervous and consequently irritable. Hannibal resolved not to appear abashed."It's about the Siren," he said."What!" The mayor was all interest now. "What about the Siren?""I want to suggest a means for getting rid of the awful sounds which come over the waterevery night; to get rid of them so that the people of this city can sleep again."The mayor stared at his visitor for a moment or two and then spoke solemnly:"Young man if you can do what you propose you are not unlikely to take my place in this seat, some day. You will be the most popular man in the city. Look at me! I weighed two hundred and ten pounds when the Siren was first placed in the harbor. Now I weigh a scant one hundred and fifty-six. There are thousands of others who have suffered in the same way—insomnia, shattered nerves and all that sort of thing—and the situation is growing worse instead of better. Only the stolid and dull are unaffected. Talk about American restlessness and excitability! Why, what has been in the past will be calm philosophy compared with what will come in the future when Sirens are established in every harbor of the country. Of course, young man, I know that you're only a dreamer, a would-be inventor—you have the big full eyes of an inventor—but I don't feel like being impatient with any one whose efforts are bent in a direction as laudable as are yours. Tell me what your particular dream is." And the mayor leaned back wearily."But I'm not a dreamer!" exclaimed Hannibal excitedly. "I know what I have been doing and what I'm talking about. I tell you I can get rid of the ghastly noise made by the Siren and yet have the vessels warned in a fog as well as they are now. Yes, I'll warn them at even a greater distance. More than that," and Hannibal began to get excited, "more than that, I'll transform what is now a source of agony to one of pleasure. I guarantee it. I can explain my plan to you and you'll say it's feasible, sir; I know you will!" and the young man paused, out of breath.The mayor's face had taken on a look of patient endurance. "Go ahead," he said, "and show me how the wheels work in your head. I hope it will not take long."Hannibal paid no attention to the sarcasm. He was too full of his subject: "I tell you, Mr. Mayor, that I've solved the problem. I've spent weeks and weeks upon it and at last I've got it. I can make it as clear as day to you. First I want you to hear this from one of the leading scientific magazines of the world," and he drew forth a clipping and began to read—"It is a well known fact that a musical soundcan be heard distinctly at a greater distance than can an unmusical one.""THE MAYOR HAD BEEN GETTING INTERESTED""THE MAYOR HAD BEEN GETTING INTERESTED""There," continued Hannibal triumphantly, as he restored the clipping to his pocket, "you see the point; you can hear a musical sound at a greater distance than you can hear an unmusical one. The dismal wails of the Siren are not musical, but why not make them so? There's a way and I have found it."The mayor was sitting erect in his chair, now. He was becoming interested. "Go on," he said."Well," replied Hannibal. "There's not much more to say at present. I've given you the general idea. The principle is sound and I know how to put the design into execution.""Are you sure," said the mayor, "are you very sure?""I am," responded Hannibal."Well, what do you want?""I want the privilege of putting new works inside the Siren, that's all.""But the Siren is under the control of the United States Government. How can we get permission for the experiment?""Oh," said Hannibal, cheerfully, "I've thought all that out. The government usually pays attention to the advice of business men of anylocality where it has established something in their interest. The vessel men here are the ones who have influence in the case. Get the vessel men to endorse it and the government will consent to the experiment."The mayor had been getting more and more interested as all the bearings of the case became clear to him. The thing seemed practicable, and what would not follow should it really prove a success! It would redound to his credit that he had recognized the plan which gave the city peace. He reached a decision promptly."I'll help you," he declared, "I'll call a meeting of the vessel men for to-morrow night. You'll have to be there to explain the thing as you have to me—more fully though. Does that suit you?"Hannibal departed walking on air. Could he convince the vessel men! He had not the slightest doubt of it.He neither ate nor slept much from the time he left the mayor's office, until on the evening of the next day when he entered the hall where the vessel men were assembled, the mayor with them.The mayor took the chair, called the meeting to order, explained briefly the propositionwhich had been made to him, and said that he had thought it best to refer the suppliant to those most vitally interested in the matter. The inventor was present and would make his own explanation.Hannibal took the platform tremblingly. He had never addressed an audience in his life, and his knees shook and there was a lump in his throat. At first he could not articulate, but when a bluff, red-faced old mariner, taking pity on him, called out—"Don't be scared, young man; take your time," he recovered himself and began stammeringly. Gradually the words came more freely. He believed in his scheme, and that gave him strength. He warmed to his subject and almost forgot where he was. He became eloquent, in an inventor's way. He described the present horrors of the Siren, the condition of the people, and the prejudice that was growing up in consequence against anything marine, a prejudice which might in time affect seriously the shipping interest.Then he told how much farther a musical sound could travel than could an unmusical one. Then he outlined vaguely the value and nature of his invention which would substitute one sound for the other, and make of the Sirena blessing on land as well as on the water. He carried his audience with him and, when he closed his address, flushed and earnest, his hand was grasped heartily by a large proportion of those present. There was a brief debate, but it was nearly all one way, and it was decided, that the Presidents of the Vessel Owners Association and the Tug Owners Association should form a committee of two, to proceed at once to Washington and there secure from the right department permission for the trying of Hannibal's experiment. Furthermore there was contributed on the spot a sum sufficient, in Hannibal's estimation, for the execution of his plan. Within two weeks the committee had made its trip and returned with the government's consent to the undertaking. Hannibal went to work.It was no simple task that now faced the young man, albeit the greatest obstacle was just removed. Sanguine as most inventors are, supplied with funds sufficient for his purpose, unlimited as to time, he yet realized a certain gravity to the situation. He rented a wing of an old warehouse, hired capable mechanics as assistants and plunged into his labor, feverishly.What is known as the "orchestrion" is a gigantic musical machine popular in summer gardens, restaurants and various similar places of public resort. Perforated sheets of metal are slipped into the machine, one after another, and different tunes are played according to the perforations in the metal. The basis of Hannibal Perkin's idea was the orchestrion, with the addition of certain adjuncts of the fog-horn, to secure a volume of sound equaling that which nightly woke the echoes and everything else. Of course he could not himself manufacture perforated plates of the size he required, but a special order to a great firm in the business solved this part of the problem and a huge set of circular plates, twenty-five feet in diameter, was soon delivered at his shop. The machine itself was all the work of Hannibal and his two assistants. The day came when the thing was done and the monster orchestrion, or whatever it might be called, was loaded on a barge and towed to the light-house where the siren was about to be deposed. To make the proper attachments for the orchestrion—which did not get its power from winding up in the ordinary way, but by a steam arrangement—was a work of time, for just herewas the most difficult part of the undertaking, and where the inventive genius of Hannibal Perkins shone out most brilliantly. It was a new departure but it was all right in principle, as Hannibal had maintained, and the day came when he announced that, when the fog fell that night, a new Siren, one with a voice such as was never heard before on sea or shore, would call across the waters to belated vessel men.Night came and the fog came with it. Dimmer and dimmer grew the flashes from the light-house lantern until, at last, they could no longer be distinguished from the shore, and then, to the people of the great city came a sensation."Chippie, get your hair cut, hair cut, hair cut,Chippie, get your hair cut, hair cut short."Loud and clear from away out in the harbor came the notes of the rollicking tune, once so generally popular. The atmosphere was fairly saturated with it. Never had even the howl of the detested Siren so thoroughly permeated every outdoor nook and cranny of the town. The moving multitudes on the brilliantly lighted streets paused and listened, and as they stood there, lost and curious, the same sweetbut tremendous voice informed them affably:
"THE GREAT SNAKE BEGAN ITS WORK OF DEGLUTITION"
"THE GREAT SNAKE BEGAN ITS WORK OF DEGLUTITION"
It was unfortunate for this particular anaconda that the reptilia are not great reasoners. He should have begun upon the man's head. Then it would have been a simple thing. The man would have been engulfed, the serpent would have crawled sluggishly a hundred yards or so away and begun his period of digestion, and that would have been the end of the incident. Instead of that, he started on a foot, and began swallowing from that point. Now, it is a well-known fact that this swallowing of a body by any of the constrictor family, except as to contraction and eventual suffocation, is harmless, because the jaws of this class of serpents are unconnected. The upper jaw slips forward, hooks onto the body with its fangs and draws it into an enormously distended throat. Then the under jaw slips forward in the same manner, hooks its fangs, and draws it back in the same way. So, inch by inch, a body isengulfed. Anything with a nonsensitive exterior can be swallowed by an anaconda, a boa, or a python without knowing about it until a lack of air becomes apparent.
MacGregor wore a pair of very heavy leather trousers he had secured to guard him against the undergrowth with which we had to worry. So the great snake began his work of deglutition, and Alan lay there, unconscious of what was going on. Still that snake swallowed Alan as fast as he could. He swallowed him as far up as the leg went and then stopped, from the simple fact that the rest of Alan lay at right angles across his mouth, and he could not swallow any further. But a snake does not reason much, and this particular anaconda lay there contented, perhaps in his dim way knowing that he had got something good as far as it went, and that he was satisfied. And the process of digestion went on.
It was truly a coincidence that we all returned almost together that evening. It must have been about seven o'clock. Malcolm came back from his particular quest without a jaguar. I had failed to find my little animal. The natives had found their fruit, and had gathered a large load, or they would have been in long before us.Then we looked for Alan. To describe the scene that ensued when our poor friend was discovered would be impossible. He was sleeping like a log. We thought him dead, at first, but some one gave him a spat upon the face and shouted, and he leaped, or tried to leap, to his feet, and when he saw what was the matter, he gave one of the most blood-curdling yells ever emitted upon either the North or the South American continent. The snake began thrashing around, but was already in a semi-lethargic condition, and was promptly chopped in two a little below the point where the foot of our poor friend was supposed to be. Then the remainder of the serpent was cut away with much difficulty from the leg which it had enveloped, and a shocking spectacle was presented.
It is understood, generally, that the digestive organs of the anaconda are something most remarkable. Here was an illustration in fact. Not only the leather trousers of our unfortunate friend had been digested away, but the digesting process had reached his skin and destroyed it utterly. The bare flesh was all exposed and the skin had followed the trousers. Alan was unable to stand, and was so overcome with horror at his condition, as to be incapable ofsuggesting anything for relief from his immediate predicament or for his future restoration. The raw flesh attracted a myriad of insects, who added all their tantalizing possibilities to the situation. Alan could not bear contact with any sort of covering, and none of us was provided with oiled silk or anything suitable for such an unheard-of emergency. I did not know what to do. I called upon Dr. Jacobson, the eminent scientist of the expedition. Hardly had I asked his advice, before there came the whirr and swish of arrows, and we were in a charming fight in no time. The event, in fact, became almost too interesting, but we managed to drive off the natives and found half a dozen of them, dead or dying in the underbrush. They had carried off most of their wounded.
To Jacobson came an inspiration, as he was looking curiously at one of the dead natives. He broke out excitedly:
"There's an insensible, dying Indian just about the size of MacGregor. If we work quickly enough, we can do the biggest job of skin grafting ever heard of upon this or any other continent, or anywhere in stellar space as far as you have a mind to go."
We did it all with a rush, under the scientist'sdirection. We skinned that half-way nigger's leg, and it was immediately and neatly inflected, adjusted, and stitched upon the leg which had loitered a shade too long in the maw of the anaconda. The dark skin fitted on, and grew to be a part of MacGregor in almost no time. Talk about the "hand-me-down" man who assures the customer that the thing "fits shust like de paper on de vall," well, neither he nor his customer could be counted in with our scientist and MacGregor and a portion of the South American, so lately but so permanently deceased.
That is about all there is to the tropical part of this episode. I was present when Alan met his sweetheart again. Soon came St. Andrew's day. MacGregor was to be a prominent figure, and his sweetheart awaited the occasion with pride and hopefulness, and great enthusiasm. She waited, anxiously, until she should see her true love conspicuous, as she thought he ought to be, in the crack organization of those who made part of the parade of St. Andrew's day. There came a moment of intense excitement, both to her and to the somewhat overbearing Scottish group about her. When it was generally understood that the most vaunting, aristocratic,and full-blooded Scots company was about to pass, she watched and watched, watched just for him, to see her great lover stalking nobly in the finest company. Time lagged. Never before had Time so loafed and enjoyed himself in some nonsense by the wayside. Finally, a hundred yards away, came imposing and demanding on the ear-drums the music of the pipes. There wasn't any slogan, because there wasn't any fight, but something almost as appealing to the clean, stubborn, Scottish heart, be it in man or woman. They swung around the corner and into the main street. She saw it all and she knew it all, and looked for Alan MacGregor among those coming barelegged to the fore with the weird music which has for centuries meant ever pluck, and sometimes conquest. Her eyes turned this way and that way, and finally they lit upon her sweetheart. There was no doubt about it. There he was, marching as lieutenant or something of that sort, of the tartaned company, all barelegged from below the kilt a little above the knee to thick stocking just below the knee, all alike displaying this ancient Scottish endurance of field and flood and of anything else. The girl's stately Alan walked grandly in hisplace, clad confidently in the tartan of his clan, and showing his strip of leg about the knee as brazenly as did any other man of the parading Scotsmen.
The girl saw him, looked upon him, first buoyant, excited and admiring, then appalled. She saw him lording it abroad among his minions, and, at the same time, she noted that his legs were black and those of the other men white. She could not understand it; it was something ghastly.
What had happened was this:
It was the morning of St. Andrew's day, and they were gathered in the armory, the hundreds of enthusiastic Scots. The sun's rays shot slanting through the windows, lit upon bonnet, tartan, and sporan, and upon legs bare at the knee, "uncomely fair," as a veteran observed, which was not to be wondered at, as they were thus exposed but once a year, to the intense but concealed discomfort of their shivering but patriotic owners. Ringing-voiced and cheerful among them was Alan MacGregor. He dressed himself in the retiring room, as did the others, and came out in all the kilted glory of his ancient clan. He was a fine figure of a man to look upon, but there was a howlwhen he appeared. The bare patch about the knee of one leg showed white, and on the other, black!
"Ken ye what's the matter wi' your legs, mon?" roared a giant among the group; and MacGregor looked down, to realize in a moment his condition. It would never do to march through the streets with one leg black and the other white. In desperation he told his story to his assembled countrymen. There was a groan of sympathy and perplexity, until the tension was relieved by the cry of an inventive young whelp from the Orkneys:
"What's the matter with ink?"
The suggestion was received with a howl of applause, and, three minutes later, the bare portion of MacGregor's white leg was made to correspond in color with the other.
To repeat, in a way, what has been already told, from the armory, the gallant Scotsmen swung upon the street in serried numbers, to march imposingly through streets lined and flanked with thousands and thousands of their fellow-citizens of any birth. They made a spectacle which it was good to see. Each piper "screwed his pipes and garred them skirl," "The pibroch lent its maddening tone," andthe pipes droned and clamored and yelped for victory nearer and nearer all the time. The marchers passed in gallant style. The moment came at last when, with a defiant howl of the pipes, MacGregor's company passed the stand, and it was now that, as has been related, Agnes saw her lover, broad shouldered, cleanly built, and striding with the inherited gait of a thousand chieftains. Eh! but he was fine! For one blissful moment Agnes gazed upon her lover's figure, before she saw his knees. She swooned, and the lady who sat next her applied her salts and led her gently from the scene.
It seemed to the Scotchwoman there was but one thing for her to do. When she recovered sufficiently, she wrote this letter to her Alan:
Oh, Alan! Are ye no patriot, no product of the Scotsmen of the old time? And I, I thought your blood as blue as the water in the mountain lakes fresh tinted from the sky. Oh, Alan! my Alan! ye looked so braw, barrin' the black breeks ye wore to protect the single patch of ye from the raw weather. Oh, Alan! did our stern ancestors do the like of that? Cared they for squall or flurry or the frost rime? Oh, my Alan! I love ye. Ye ken it well, but we mustnot marry. Think ye I would tak pride in children of the man of the black breeks? I'm gey—sore gey! Your"AGNES."
Oh, Alan! Are ye no patriot, no product of the Scotsmen of the old time? And I, I thought your blood as blue as the water in the mountain lakes fresh tinted from the sky. Oh, Alan! my Alan! ye looked so braw, barrin' the black breeks ye wore to protect the single patch of ye from the raw weather. Oh, Alan! did our stern ancestors do the like of that? Cared they for squall or flurry or the frost rime? Oh, my Alan! I love ye. Ye ken it well, but we mustnot marry. Think ye I would tak pride in children of the man of the black breeks? I'm gey—sore gey! Your"AGNES."
Now note what happened! Now pity me! Alan was heart-riven and wild, and came to me in his distress. I was the only person in the great city who could give authoritatively the story of his brown leg. I was the only person who could re-establish him in Agnes' mind as an ardent Scot. Imagine a mission like that. Imagine a man having to go and talk to a young lady about one of her lover's legs! I don't know how I did it, but certainly I did it. I want to say here and now and frankly—and I don't care whether she reads it or not—that when I first met her, the temperature was far more sultry than we had ever found it upon the Amazon. It dropped many degrees, though, before my story was concluded.
Well, they have a boy about two years old, and they have named him after me. I don't know what I'll do to that boy. The little wretch hugs me so strenuously that I believe he is part anaconda.
And this ended the story-telling for the day. Their imaginations had been "stretched enough" commented kindly Mrs. Livingston.
THE HUGE HOUND'S MOOD
The morning of the third day of rude experience opened somewhat more brightly for "the wastrels of the waste," as the Young Lady of the party very nicely designated them, for it had cleared. There remained, however, the thought that the addition to the snowfall must delay the work of rescue, an apprehension which was soon confirmed. Stafford was using the telegraph with no inconvenience now. He had contrived to bring a wire from the main line into the smoking car, and communication from there with those on the relief train was an easy matter. The news that came was not exhilarating. Very slow headway was being made, so the workers beyond the drifts reported. The railroad company had not yet installed the rotary snow-plows which, later, proved most effective, hurling the snow to a distance and clearing the way thoroughly, while the one in use but bored its way through the drifts, only to have a part of the tossed-up mass comewhelming back to the track again. There was a vast amount of shovelling to do, and that took time. The resolute workers "at the other end of the trouble," as the trainmen called it, were not discouraged, but they admitted that they were not attending a midsummer picnic. In fact there was no semblance of a picnic about it. They were not so assured now that release would come to the enthralled on the fourth day, at the latest. They but expressed a glittering confidence that the fifth day, beyond all doubt, would see the end. This assurance by no means satisfied the captive passengers. They felt that the White Jailor still held the keys and had them in his inside pocket.
There was much gossip over the emergency line and, despite the somewhat oppressive news, there was infused an element of cheerfulness by this easy, sympathetic communication with the outside world. The car in which the instrument was placed was a magnet, for, though Stafford was the only one on the train possessing sufficient experience to accomplish what he had done, there were some who understood a little of the science of telegraphy and could receive and send messages, after a fashion.Communication between the trains was going on most of the time.
Stafford had completed his work at the instrument and returned to his own car, where the usual group, with others who had wandered in, were assembled, amusing themselves as best they could for the after-luncheon hour. He had noted the outline of a woman's head as he entered, and though her face was not toward him, knew very well to whom the fair head belonged. A sudden courageous impulse swayed him to its way, an impulse for which he had reason to be grateful all his life. He advanced and seated himself directly across the aisle from the Far Away Lady, who looked at him and smiled a quiet welcome. He was not quite himself as he began talking to her, but he did well, under the circumstances, and so did she. It was a meeting as delicious as constrained, for this was the first occasion on which they had opportunity to engage in anything like a real conversation. Hesitant, happy but, in a vague way, apprehensive, with a trying past recalled by tones as familiar to each as if five years were but an hour, the two exchanged only commonplaces at first, comment on the curious manner in which they were nowheld from the rest of humanity, or speculation over the immediate prospect. It was all commonplace, or would have been so, if either been able to veil the story of the eyes. Eyes are faithful but sometimes faithless servitors, meaning well and doing ill. None can control them absolutely, lovers least of all.
And then their misgivingly sweet communion was ended by what was so inconceivably and suddenly alarming and dangerous that even Stafford was, for a moment, dazed.
From outside came the sound of a wild yell followed by what was a man's shout, or rather shriek, of terror, then, commingled with a fierce yelp and growl, a sound of clattering on the car steps a rattling of the door, its sudden violent opening, as a man's form veered away from it and plunged into the snow on the other side, and then the appearance of a Thing which hesitated but a second, then turned and entered the car leapingly, a monstrous brute with fanged jaws agape and glaring eyes and death in his fierce intent. Not the Black Dog of the Marshes, not Red Wull, the murderer of Scottish sheep, not the Hound of the Baskervilles could have presented an appearance more utterly demoniacal.
There were cries and shouts of alarm and the occupants of the car were on their feet as the great brute plunged forward. He saw, apparently, but one object. The Far Away Lady had been sitting close to the outside of her seat and it was her white, startled face which drew the red eyes of the charging monster. Two great leaps he made and the third was at her throat.
But not so swift the leap as that of the man opposite the imperiled woman. As a panther starts, Stafford shot from his place and was before her. With arm upraised, to shield his throat, he met the full impact of the tremendous force, staggering before it, but not falling. Then began a struggle brief but terrifying.
The hound's teeth found nothing as they came together, missing the fending left arm as the man thrust it forward, and coming together viciously as the brute fell back for an instant and leaped again. This time the arm was siezed fiercely as the man's right hand grasped firmly the dog's throat. There was a momentary wrenching and swaying, the dog's hold on the arm was lost and, at the same instant, almost, the hand of the arm released was aidingits fellow in the throat grip, when the fierce wrestle became more even. The dog writhed and twisted madly while the man stood, pale but firm, his legs braced against the seats as he sought a mastery of the folding skin and to bring his hands together until they should find the windpipe and afford a chance of throttling his powerful adversary. The feat was not an easy one, for there were great size and the strength of savage rage to overcome. Growling hoarsely, foaming at the mouth, whining hungrily in its blood-thirst, the brute surged forward again and again, and wrenched and swayed in the effort to free himself from that merciless, seeking hold. So they swung and tottered for a moment, and then, at last, the man found the deadly grip he had been feeling for; he had the windpipe of the beast!
Now came another aspect to the struggle. The hound, in peril now, no longer aggressive, for the moment, was fighting for his life. His strength was going. With a mighty effort, Stafford swung him about and backward against the seat, gasping and gurgling. With the utmost strength of his hands the man squeezed and bore forward, at the same time, with all the weight and impulse of his body. The dogtwisted in frightful paroxysms, the red tongue protruded and the eyes stared blindly, but there was too much vitality in the animal for a sudden end of all. Still the man surged forward with all his might, bearing so closely that the hot slaver of the beast was on his cheek and in his hair. The straining lasted for a little time, and then at last came what was certain; there was a sudden yielding, a great final gasp, the big body relaxed and straightened out and the fight was over. Stafford rose weakly upright, assisted by the men who had vainly sought opportunity to assist him in the sudden fight and turned toward the woman who lay faint and white, against the window ledge, with face upturned and eyes unseeing. They carried her gently to her stateroom.
"THE BIG BODY RELAXED AND STRAIGHTENED OUT"
"THE BIG BODY RELAXED AND STRAIGHTENED OUT"
There was a rush of the passengers to Stafford's side and there were showering thanks and congratulations and all the exclamatory comment which would naturally follow a scene so startling and with such a termination, but one man swept the others aside, with suddenly acquired authority, and demanded an examination of Stafford's hurt. It was the physician of the group, and the wisdom of his action was recognized at once. It was found that thedog's teeth had entered the fore-arm deeply, but the marks were clean and the blood was flowing readily. "It would be nothing serious," commented the doctor, "if it were not for the chance of hydrophobia. Do you think the dog was mad?" he asked of Stafford.
And, even as he spoke, something happened, something which, as before, was so unexpected, so alarming, so utterly beyond all ordinary chance, as to rob the men there of the moment's reason. There was a snarl like that of a tiger at their very feet and the dog's neck upreared among them fiercely. He had not been strangled utterly unto death, and had revived to breath and life again. His strength seemed to return to him instantaneously. With a growl which was almost a roar, the beast surged into the aisle, his glaring eyes unseeing at first but, as perception came to them, discerning again but a single object. Their devouring intent was upon a figure just entering the other doorway. The animal's sighted quarry was the effervescent youth who had first made himself generally known on the train because of his air of optimism. He had instant opportunity for an exhibition of all his blithesome qualities.
Straight toward the man the dog plunged furiously, in an uplifting leap which was but a hurling of himself squarely at his throat as he had leaped at that thinner one of the Far Away Lady, but the youth lacked not presence of mind, which was illustrated in so diminutive a fraction of a second as to be practically unrecordable. Far and well he sprang from the steps of the car and landed in a drift up to his armpits, falling forward as the dog plunged after him. The beast collided with the railing of the platform and turned and rolled into the snow as he struck the earth, or as nearly the earth as he could go. The snow was above his head, and well it was for the pursued that it was the case. The man plunged ahead, hampered, it is true, but making swift headway in his alarm, straight toward a tree on the ascending slope, a stunted pine which was providentially but a few yards away, while the brute pursuing him plunged wildly about yelping and barking, guided only by scent and sound in his fierce chase. The man had the advantage and what had seemed a prospective tragedy one moment became something very like a comedy the next. It was droll but well was it for the evading man that the snow hehad lately been anathematizing had now become his ally and protector. He reached the tree not much ahead of the raving dog, who was at its trunk in a moment as soon as the pursued came fairly into sight, and clambering to safety upon a lower limb, not very far up but sufficiently high to assure him immunity from the snapping jaws of the beast leaping upward in a vain attempt to reach the perching chase. The youth wound his arms about the bole and dangled his legs down tantalizingly, meanwhile announcing exuberantly to the people who had rushed to the platform that snow was the finest thing in the world, when it was deep enough. All would have been over with in a moment and the youth free to come down from his eyrie but for a sudden interruption, for half a dozen of the passengers had, by this time, secured revolvers from their grips and were about to end at once the career of the raging animal. A shot, which missed had already been fired when the voice of Stafford rang out sharply:
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot the brute, yet! I want to know first whether or not he is a mad dog. Wait a few moments."
His request was obeyed unhesitatingly, all recognizing its good sense and forethought,while the Gallus Youth called out cheerily: "That's right. I'll amuse him here Mr. Stafford while you diagnose his ailment. It's a good idea. May save a record case of hydrophobia. Try him on, but look out, or 'dar's gwine ter be not only trubble in de chu'ch but discawd in de choir.'"
And while the passengers crowded at the windows and on the platforms, Stafford did "try him on." He sent for bread and meat and, stepping down to the lower step of the car, waited until the dog had become silent for a moment and was gazing intently and watchfully upward at his undestined prey, and then called out, attracting his attention. There was a general shrinking back, the majority of the passengers expecting a rush of the animal toward the car again, but to the surprise of all he did not move as Stafford spoke to him soothingly, though he turned his head and showed his teeth. Stafford leaned forward and tossed to the dog's very feet the steaming meat and other food which had been brought and no sooner had the scent reached the nostrils of the beast than, ignoring instantly the man perched in the tree he pounced upon the food voraciously, gulping it down as if he had notfed for months. Stafford called for more and fed the suffering creature until he would eat no longer. Then he called the dog to him, good-naturedly and in an ordinary tone, and, astounding as it was to all, the beast responded, approaching him though somewhat cautiously. Stafford sent for water, and finally the dog lapped it from a pail in quantities which told a story. Dumb animal though it was upon which they were gazing the onlookers could not but sympathize with its evident past distress and recognize what had been the natural consequence. Stafford rose and drew a long breath of relief. Assuredly he had good reason. The chance of hydrophobia was past. "The dog is not mad," he said. "He was only starving and crazed with thirst and raging blindly at everything and anybody. I don't blame the unreasoning beast. How did it happen?"
The whole thing was soon made clear. The dog, a dappled monster Ulm, or Siberian bloodhound, had been shipped from San Francisco to the East by an owner to whom the hound was as the apple of his eye. It had been confined in the forward baggage car the man in charge of which had been ill during the train's imprisonmentand had forgotten the beast entirely. The car had not been opened before and the imprisoned animal crazed by thirst and hunger, had gone practically insane with suffering and, upon the opening of the door, had leaped out furiously, in pursuit of the first object upon which it could vent its fury. One man's neglect had resulted in something very close to tragedy.
Now the dog was fawning at Stafford's feet. He patted it on the head and the beast followed him into the baggage car again where it lay down contentedly. There was no thought of killing it now. As one man said: "We may be all going mad ourselves before we get out of this." But he created no apprehension.
Stafford returned to his car and another examination of his hurt was made. The punctures in his arm were treated by the doctor, to avoid all chances, as he said, and the episode of the dog was ended.
THE SIREN
The startling episode of the attack of the dog had not sufficed to distract Colonel Livingston's regard from his manifest duty as guide, philosopher and friend to all the incarcerated wayfarers. He was too old a campaigner for that. After the confusion had ceased and comment on the stirring incident had died away, he looked about in austere contemplation. His eyes rested upon the Conductor and Porter, who were discussing something together at the end of the car. He acted promptly.
"Here," he called out, cheerfully but imperatively, "if you think that this train crew has but one sort of responsibility just now, you are mistaken. Passengers must, under the circumstances, have even more attention than usual. They must be entertained. You must each tell a story. Mr. Conductor, I call upon you first."
The conductor was mightily embarrassed. Evidently story-telling was not his specialty.Recognizing, however, the fact that there was nothing for him but submission to the inflexible Colonel, he succumbed, red in the face and twisting nervously his short mustache.
"I'm not much at telling anything," he managed to explain, "and don't believe I have any story of my own that would be worth while, but I never hear the whistle cut loose that I don't think of what a man I met in San Francisco told me of what has been going on in one of the big cities, and may be going on yet for all I know. I haven't been East of Denver for a long time—that's the end of my run—and, it seems to me, that, if what he told me is true, I'd have seen something about it in the newspapers. Maybe not, though; they miss lots of things. Anyhow, this is what he told me—and I'll try to tell it just as he did, even using some of his big words, about what has been happening with a kind of big whistle to help sailors which they call,
THE SIREN
Half a mile off shore, an adjunct of the light-house, was the Siren, friend of mariners and enemy of all the rest of mankind. When the fog came upon the face of the waters and steamersand sailing vessels, creeping fearfully about in all directions, were in danger of collision, with resultant horrors, and shrieked out their apprehensions in strident whistlings, the Siren responded through the opaque waste with a warning howl, telling each seaman where he was and where was safety and where was death. It was a howl of the pitch and key best adapted for reaching a great distance and served its purpose well, yet it was doleful as a sound from the tomb or the wail of a lost soul with a bass voice. But little cared the fog-fretted captains or their crews or passengers for the lugubriousness of the Siren's call. As long as the notes of the misnamed fog-horn indicated the path to safety they cared nothing for the quality of the note.
In the city which stood beside the shore, the case was different. People recognized the fact that the great water highways must be made safe and that mariners must be protected, but the burden of the Siren was hard to bear. Little attention had been paid to its sound at first but the constant iteration had told upon mind and body as tells the constant falling of a single drop of water upon the head. People were seriously affected. In the foggy season strongmen became fretful and impatient and weak women were compelled to seek the country. The whole city was threatened with an attack of nervous debility. All night long, and sometimes late into the forenoon, the fog would hang stubbornly above the harbor, and all night long and far into the daylight, the Siren would groan and groan while the people raved. Sanitariums did a thriving business. Some sort of climax was approaching when Hannibal Perkins appeared from the suburbs upon the scene.
Hannibal Perkins was a young man about twenty-one years of age. He was born "down East" as he explained, and was tall and gaunt, with pleasant blue eyes and a soft voice. He was ambitious and possessed of an inventive genius which he wished to cultivate. He had graduated from the city high school and desired now to spend two or three years in a famous scientific academy, but could not gratify his wish, because of relative poverty. He helped his father in the work of a small truck farm just outside the city, but there was small yearly surplus to aid in the realization of Hannibal's hopes and plans. There was stuff in the youth, though. Regretting but not dismayed, Hannibal worked doggedly, ever planning as to howhe might raise honestly the needed money. The little farm lay close beside the shore and at night the youth's thoughts were frequently disturbed, for the Perkin's family got the full benefit of the Siren's groans.
Not only was Hannibal Perkins an inventor, but he had a musical gift as well. He played the violin with skill and feeling, and had studied with an excellent teacher, a friend of the family who had become interested in Hannibal and given him lessons gratis. He possessed an exquisite ear and it is doubtful if in all the city there was a person who suffered more from the Siren's dismal cry than did this robust young man. Night after night he would toss about in his bed and but endure. "Is there no way of stopping it," he thought. "Cannot the same end be attained in some less melancholy and devastating way?" Unable to sleep regularly, at last, in desperation he set his wits to work.
Reading a scientific magazine one day, a single sentence impressed itself upon Hannibal Perkin's memory: "It is a well known fact that a musical sound can be heard distinctly at a greater distance than can an unmusical one." Hannibal pondered much.
One night, either because his nerves chancedto be a little more nearly on edge than usual or because the Siren chanced to be in good working order, the sounds which came from the outer harbor seemed to Hannibal more than ordinarily loud and mournful and appalling. He raged helplessly. "What need of so much noise, and such a noise!" he fumed, but, sobering in temper with reflection, tried to content himself with muttering resignedly: "I suppose it's necessary that the thing should be heard as far away as possible,"—then checked his muttering suddenly. The sentence in the scientific periodical had recurred to him. "It is a well known fact that a musical sound can be heard distinctly at a greater distance than an unmusical one." He rose from his bed and sat silent, with wrinkled brow. Gradually the wrinkles disappeared and a light came into the young man's eyes. He sprang to his feet, giving vent as he did so to the single, all unstudied, expression "B'gosh!" He had learned it when a boy "down East" while working in the fields with the hired man.
For the next two weeks Hannibal Perkins did little labor on the farm. His time was spent from daylight to dark in a small lean-to which served the double purpose of woodshedand workship. Then for another week, he was in town studying the mechanism of the great church organs—instruments with which he was already tolerably familiar—and consulting with organ-builders and other craftsmen. The fourth week was spent in the little shop again.
It was the beginning of one of the foggiest months in the year that Hannibal Perkins, hat in hand, somewhat abashed, but resolute, entered the office of the mayor of the city. He looked curiously upon the man seated at his desk. He saw a person of apparently strong physique, but thin and pale and with glittering eyes, the eyes of a victim of insomnia. The mayor wheeled about in his chair.
"What do you want?" he asked peevishly.
It was not a pleasant reception but, as a matter of fact, the man ordinarily affable was nervous and consequently irritable. Hannibal resolved not to appear abashed.
"It's about the Siren," he said.
"What!" The mayor was all interest now. "What about the Siren?"
"I want to suggest a means for getting rid of the awful sounds which come over the waterevery night; to get rid of them so that the people of this city can sleep again."
The mayor stared at his visitor for a moment or two and then spoke solemnly:
"Young man if you can do what you propose you are not unlikely to take my place in this seat, some day. You will be the most popular man in the city. Look at me! I weighed two hundred and ten pounds when the Siren was first placed in the harbor. Now I weigh a scant one hundred and fifty-six. There are thousands of others who have suffered in the same way—insomnia, shattered nerves and all that sort of thing—and the situation is growing worse instead of better. Only the stolid and dull are unaffected. Talk about American restlessness and excitability! Why, what has been in the past will be calm philosophy compared with what will come in the future when Sirens are established in every harbor of the country. Of course, young man, I know that you're only a dreamer, a would-be inventor—you have the big full eyes of an inventor—but I don't feel like being impatient with any one whose efforts are bent in a direction as laudable as are yours. Tell me what your particular dream is." And the mayor leaned back wearily.
"But I'm not a dreamer!" exclaimed Hannibal excitedly. "I know what I have been doing and what I'm talking about. I tell you I can get rid of the ghastly noise made by the Siren and yet have the vessels warned in a fog as well as they are now. Yes, I'll warn them at even a greater distance. More than that," and Hannibal began to get excited, "more than that, I'll transform what is now a source of agony to one of pleasure. I guarantee it. I can explain my plan to you and you'll say it's feasible, sir; I know you will!" and the young man paused, out of breath.
The mayor's face had taken on a look of patient endurance. "Go ahead," he said, "and show me how the wheels work in your head. I hope it will not take long."
Hannibal paid no attention to the sarcasm. He was too full of his subject: "I tell you, Mr. Mayor, that I've solved the problem. I've spent weeks and weeks upon it and at last I've got it. I can make it as clear as day to you. First I want you to hear this from one of the leading scientific magazines of the world," and he drew forth a clipping and began to read—
"It is a well known fact that a musical soundcan be heard distinctly at a greater distance than can an unmusical one."
"THE MAYOR HAD BEEN GETTING INTERESTED"
"THE MAYOR HAD BEEN GETTING INTERESTED"
"There," continued Hannibal triumphantly, as he restored the clipping to his pocket, "you see the point; you can hear a musical sound at a greater distance than you can hear an unmusical one. The dismal wails of the Siren are not musical, but why not make them so? There's a way and I have found it."
The mayor was sitting erect in his chair, now. He was becoming interested. "Go on," he said.
"Well," replied Hannibal. "There's not much more to say at present. I've given you the general idea. The principle is sound and I know how to put the design into execution."
"Are you sure," said the mayor, "are you very sure?"
"I am," responded Hannibal.
"Well, what do you want?"
"I want the privilege of putting new works inside the Siren, that's all."
"But the Siren is under the control of the United States Government. How can we get permission for the experiment?"
"Oh," said Hannibal, cheerfully, "I've thought all that out. The government usually pays attention to the advice of business men of anylocality where it has established something in their interest. The vessel men here are the ones who have influence in the case. Get the vessel men to endorse it and the government will consent to the experiment."
The mayor had been getting more and more interested as all the bearings of the case became clear to him. The thing seemed practicable, and what would not follow should it really prove a success! It would redound to his credit that he had recognized the plan which gave the city peace. He reached a decision promptly.
"I'll help you," he declared, "I'll call a meeting of the vessel men for to-morrow night. You'll have to be there to explain the thing as you have to me—more fully though. Does that suit you?"
Hannibal departed walking on air. Could he convince the vessel men! He had not the slightest doubt of it.
He neither ate nor slept much from the time he left the mayor's office, until on the evening of the next day when he entered the hall where the vessel men were assembled, the mayor with them.
The mayor took the chair, called the meeting to order, explained briefly the propositionwhich had been made to him, and said that he had thought it best to refer the suppliant to those most vitally interested in the matter. The inventor was present and would make his own explanation.
Hannibal took the platform tremblingly. He had never addressed an audience in his life, and his knees shook and there was a lump in his throat. At first he could not articulate, but when a bluff, red-faced old mariner, taking pity on him, called out—"Don't be scared, young man; take your time," he recovered himself and began stammeringly. Gradually the words came more freely. He believed in his scheme, and that gave him strength. He warmed to his subject and almost forgot where he was. He became eloquent, in an inventor's way. He described the present horrors of the Siren, the condition of the people, and the prejudice that was growing up in consequence against anything marine, a prejudice which might in time affect seriously the shipping interest.
Then he told how much farther a musical sound could travel than could an unmusical one. Then he outlined vaguely the value and nature of his invention which would substitute one sound for the other, and make of the Sirena blessing on land as well as on the water. He carried his audience with him and, when he closed his address, flushed and earnest, his hand was grasped heartily by a large proportion of those present. There was a brief debate, but it was nearly all one way, and it was decided, that the Presidents of the Vessel Owners Association and the Tug Owners Association should form a committee of two, to proceed at once to Washington and there secure from the right department permission for the trying of Hannibal's experiment. Furthermore there was contributed on the spot a sum sufficient, in Hannibal's estimation, for the execution of his plan. Within two weeks the committee had made its trip and returned with the government's consent to the undertaking. Hannibal went to work.
It was no simple task that now faced the young man, albeit the greatest obstacle was just removed. Sanguine as most inventors are, supplied with funds sufficient for his purpose, unlimited as to time, he yet realized a certain gravity to the situation. He rented a wing of an old warehouse, hired capable mechanics as assistants and plunged into his labor, feverishly.
What is known as the "orchestrion" is a gigantic musical machine popular in summer gardens, restaurants and various similar places of public resort. Perforated sheets of metal are slipped into the machine, one after another, and different tunes are played according to the perforations in the metal. The basis of Hannibal Perkin's idea was the orchestrion, with the addition of certain adjuncts of the fog-horn, to secure a volume of sound equaling that which nightly woke the echoes and everything else. Of course he could not himself manufacture perforated plates of the size he required, but a special order to a great firm in the business solved this part of the problem and a huge set of circular plates, twenty-five feet in diameter, was soon delivered at his shop. The machine itself was all the work of Hannibal and his two assistants. The day came when the thing was done and the monster orchestrion, or whatever it might be called, was loaded on a barge and towed to the light-house where the siren was about to be deposed. To make the proper attachments for the orchestrion—which did not get its power from winding up in the ordinary way, but by a steam arrangement—was a work of time, for just herewas the most difficult part of the undertaking, and where the inventive genius of Hannibal Perkins shone out most brilliantly. It was a new departure but it was all right in principle, as Hannibal had maintained, and the day came when he announced that, when the fog fell that night, a new Siren, one with a voice such as was never heard before on sea or shore, would call across the waters to belated vessel men.
Night came and the fog came with it. Dimmer and dimmer grew the flashes from the light-house lantern until, at last, they could no longer be distinguished from the shore, and then, to the people of the great city came a sensation.
"Chippie, get your hair cut, hair cut, hair cut,Chippie, get your hair cut, hair cut short."
"Chippie, get your hair cut, hair cut, hair cut,Chippie, get your hair cut, hair cut short."
Loud and clear from away out in the harbor came the notes of the rollicking tune, once so generally popular. The atmosphere was fairly saturated with it. Never had even the howl of the detested Siren so thoroughly permeated every outdoor nook and cranny of the town. The moving multitudes on the brilliantly lighted streets paused and listened, and as they stood there, lost and curious, the same sweetbut tremendous voice informed them affably: