The City of Fire

The bells often played at sunset, especially Saturday evenings, when Marilyn Severn was at home, and the village loved to hear them. Billy wouldn't have owned it, but he loved to hear those b

chime of bells attached as his memorial to the peace the village had given him in his last days. Something of his skill and yearning had fallen upon the y

sidled into a back seat still chewing and watched her. He could almost see a halo in yellow gold sun dust circling above her hair. Then a sudden revulsion came with the thought of

ve guessed, as Lynn Severn turned at the end of her melody to search the dimness for the presence she felt

on, "Red Rodge and Sloppy had 'em beat from the

brought forth the dolla

Fund," he state

see, almost as if there were tears b

! All

ted him. He turned red and

" He twisted his cap around on his other hand roughly a

g to do a thing you don't

d at him keen

might be. Don't ever try to fool your con

ly and then quite i

art last

erstand the connectio

s morning. He said he might

who understood him equally well and were understood by him, and for whom he would have gladly laid down his young life. This girl was one, and Mark Carter was the other. It was the sorrow of his young life that Mark Carter had left Sabbath Valley indefinitely. The stories that floated back of his career made no difference to Billy. He adored him but t

lage like a painting. She went across the stretch of lawn to the low spreading veranda where her mother sat talk

his problems of life. The shadow of the church cut off the glow of sunset, and made it seem silent and dark. Ahead of him the Valley lay. Across at the right it stretched toward the Junction, and he could see the evening train just puffing in with a wee wisp of white misty smoke trailing against the mount

in front of him and sloped down to the spot where the fat one expected him to play his part at eight o'clock to-night. The Highway was the way down which

thing he had set out to do was not "on the level." It began to be pretty plain to him that that "rich guy" might be in the way of getting hurt or perhaps still worse, and he had no wish to be tangled up in a mess like that. At the same time he did not often get a chance to make twenty-

lipping down behind the mountains at his back, finally

catching up the prone wheel, strode upon it and dashed down the darkening street toward the little cottage near the willows belonging to his Aunt Saxon. He

relief. This bringing up boys was a terrible ordeal. But thanks be this immediate terror was past and her sis

to the kitchen and dashed his cap on a chair, "Gee! That ham smells good! Say, Sa

illie," answered his Aunt, "Come to supper now. It

you know where the brush is-Y

d of breathless terror waiting for the inevitable remark at th

ooked distressed. It seemed a part of

n unusual thoughtfulness. He stuc

be home till morning. I migh

explanation, but her dismay

e Sabbath, Willie-!"

s off down the road in the darkness, his old wheel squeaking rheumat

ugh steep way. And once when a tin Lizzie swept down upon him, he ducked and dropped into the fringe of alders at the wayside until it was past. Was that, could it have been Cart? It didn't look like Cart's car, but it was very dark, and the man had not dimmed his lights. It was blinding. He hoped it was Cart, and that he had gone to the parsonage. Somehow he liked to think of those two together. It made his own view of life seem stronger. So he slunk quietly up to the f

st after all the rich guy might arrive before he was ready for him. When the obstruction was finished he got out a large piece of card board which had been fastened to the handle bars of his wheel, and f

H VALLEY. Rode fl

ot in the barricade. Then with a wicked gleam of mischief in his eye he looked off down the Highway across the ridge to where some two miles away one Pat must b

of cars would go around by the way of Sabbath Valley for a day or so. It might break up a little of the quiet of the Sabbath day at home, but Billy did no

Cross road coming from Economy and running through Sabbath Valley to Monopoly. He had made the Detour below the Cross Road,

hought he saw a way to make sure of that money, and his conscienc

t stroke of eleven when Billy came slickly up the slope of the road f

acks, and the heads of two men down below in the bushes near the lower end of t

g fazed Billy. He didn't have to carry this thing out if he did

reeting, "What kinduva time is this 'ere to be c

umped to his wheel again, "Then I g

you're here, you'll earn your ten bucks I was fool enough to give you, but nothing more, do

lieve the man had the nerve to shoot. He wasn't quite so sure of the two

save yer powder. You don't want the whole nation t

de one

ome friends back here a little way waiting to joy ride back with me when m

ay-!" he began, but he lowered the gun perceptibly. "Ev

e. Billy had never had any experience before with bullies and bandits except in his dreams; but he had played football, and tackled every team in the Valley, and he had no fear of anything. Moreover he had spent long hours boxing and wrestling with Mark Carter, and he was ha

ours, so just take it quiet. All you gotta do is take that remark back you just uttered. I

the time was getting short and he was in a hurry to get to his job on the Highway. Also he had no mind for being discovered or in

down to biz. Now, sonny, put that gun away, it don't look well. Besides, I-got another." H

keep this one awhile then. You do

e. Pat was really a coward. Besides, Pat was getting nervous. The hidden telephone had called him several times already. He could hear even now in imagination its faint click in the moss. The last message had said that the car had passed t

o, see? We want you to fall off that there wheel an' sprawl in the road like you had caught yer whe

h at the start. He wouldn't care to be responsible for a concussion of the brain or anything like that. Besides, he couldn't waste time fooling with a fool kid when the real thing might be along any minute. He glanced anxiously up the broad white ribbon of a road that gleamed now in the moonlight, and then pulling out his pocket flash, f

ow relieved, "All right Kid, you'll do. I guess you're all right after all

; again, as if to a friend up there in the sky. H

. It would have been so much more exciting than to have put up this all-night camouflage and wait here till dawn for a guy that wasn't coming at all. He began to think about the "guy" and wonder if he would take the detour to Sabbath Valley, or turn back, or perhaps try Economy. That would be disappointing. He would stand no chance of even hearing what he was like. Now if he went through Sabbat

grow drowsy after his full day in the open air. If it w

ds at the slope of the roa

finishes the blockade. Nobody couldn't get by if he tried. That's the Kid! 'Clare if I don't gi

morial window-the glint of her hair-it came back, not in those words, but the vision of it-what was it like? Oh-of course. Cart's hair. The same color. They were alike, those two, and yet very different. When he had grown a man he would like to be like Cart. Cart was kind and always understood when you were not feeling right. Cart smoothed the way for people in trouble-old women and animals, and well-girls sometimes. He had seen him do it. Other people didn't always

't be possible that he could hear so far as two miles up that road. It was hard and smooth macadam of course, that highway,

In a moment it would turn down the bumpy road toward Sabbath Valley, and very likely some of those old broken whiskey bottles along the way would puncture a tire and the guy wou

d hastily scanned the sky in either direction for an aeroplane, but the sky was

roadside hurtle

still! Remember you get five mo

olding them down for inspection. The thing he had wanted to have happen had come, and he was frightened; frightened cold clear to the soul of him-not at the thing that was about to come, but at the fact that he had broken faith with himself after all; broken faith with the haloed