Barstow School - Weathercock Yearbook (Kansas City, MO)

Page 33 text:

A Dlsfxsraiz M' SEA zo Scx'en. eight, nine? just a few more minutes to live! He was petrified! Why had that doctor---here Mr. Lear muttered something very ungentlemanlyl- made him get on this infernal boat to save his nerves? Fourteen, Hfteen-. His nerves were ruined! Seventeen--. He pictured himself hurled violently into the air among splintered timbers, and Miss Almira calling him to put her cards into the golf-bag! A chuckle issued from one of the heartless villains. Twenty-one, twenty-two. twenty-three---. lxlr. Lear by some desperate acrobatic feat clawed at the canvas and thrust out the top of his head. Yes. there was the black box, and one man grasping the cord which held the spring. Twenty-seven. It was only a matter of seconds now. Twenty-eight. 3-- lX4r. Lear was frantic. Twenty-nine?-H. His eyes were glued to that box. He was hypnotized. powerless! Then he found power to close his eyes. Thirty! Where was the explosion? Maybe he was dead! lVIaybe4--- Mr. Lear's eyes openedTopened+-almost burst! From out of that fatal murderous box floated a little white thing, an innocent little tuft of feathers that soared up in the sky and flew straight for that in- visible strip of blue mist that lay beyond the sunset-land! lt was a pigeon, a carrier-pigeon. ohl--! For sometime Mr. Lear lay prostrate in his life-boat, dazed. Inside. two gay young fellows were pounding on the piano and singing. The fifty is yours if she makes No. 8 lN4t. Vernon Street tonight, one was taking breath to say. Ivlr. Lear heard, gathered himself together. crept in, guilty, sheep- ish, glad to find comfort in Almira's clucking brood of sympathetic maidens' DOROTHY SCARRITT, 14915. , .