ud contain? What horrors did it hide? Of
what was its nature? What was the secret of its deadly influence? No
American catastrophe had impressed the reporter so much as the sight of
this veil, hiding the unattainable city. Curse this maledict, deadly
vapor! It paralyzed his inventiveness. It baffled his imagination. For
the first time in his reportorial career Swift was stunned and without
resource.

Now it was said that not a breath of air had stirred over the polluted
area since the morning of the loss of Russell.

As the news editor looked down the tracks he saw that the tracks, which
were torn up and twisted beneath him, within a hundred feet, disappeared
utterly from view. The wooden ties were blackened into charcoal in their
places, but the iron rails had evaporated. It was the same with the
telegraph wires. At a certain point they stopped and were gone. The
poles, tottering and scorched and bare, looked like a procession of
naked ghosts, undressed for livelier mockery. Before him the trees, the
shrubs, the grain, the grasses--in fine, all vegetation had been smitten
unto death.

The face of the earth was black and crumbling. It looked as if the roots
of this unconscious vegetable life had been suddenly touched by volcanic
fires and had died from the ground up. There was not a vestige of life
as far as the eye could see. Had a fire swept the land? But no! No smoke
had been hitherto visible, unless this inexplicable cloud were smoke.
And yet, to Swift's practiced eye, there were evidences of a violent, a
sudden, a consuming heat. The men in line behind Swift stood
respectfully back while he observed this unique scene. He noticed a
white mile-post close at hand. It was inscribed, "Russell, 20 m."

"Only twenty miles to Russell! and no one there yet! What a field for
the news editor of the greatest paper in the land! The competitors were
keen. The chances were even, the honor great, and no favors asked. As he
stood for a moment, lost in thought over the apparent hopelessness of
the undertaking, and almost wishing he had not sent so confident a
telegram to his chief, he felt a hand upon his arm.

"I have found one," said a slow voice.

"Have you? What?" asked Swift, with careless interest. He recognized the
aspirated tones of Mr. Ticks.

"I have calculated this thing over. There are between six and seven
thousand on the spot. Five hundred reporters are here, and more expected
by every train. There is no food,