was sorry now that he hadn't given
more heed to the mechanical side of things when he was growing up.

He worked with a deliberate slowness, steadily. Nevertheless, it was hot
work. The sun rose over the bank and shone on him through the limbs of
the uprooted tree. His hat was on the ground alongside of him. The sweat
ran down his face, streaking it and wilting his collar flat. The scrap
of gun metal kept slipping out of his wet fingers. Down would go the
chained hands to scrabble in the grass for it, and then the picking
would go on again. This happened a good many times. Birds, nervous with
the spirit that presages the fall migration, flew back and forth along
the creek, almost grazing Mr. Trimm sometimes. A rain crow wove a brown
thread in the green warp of the bushes above his head. A chattering red
squirrel sat up on a tree limb to scold him. At intervals, distantly,
came the cough of laboring trains, showing that the track must have been
cleared. There were times when Mr. Trimm thought he felt the lock
giving. These times he would work harder.

* * * * *

Late in the afternoon Mr. Trimm lay back against the bank, panting. His
face was splotched with red, and the little hollows at the sides of his
forehead pulsed rapidly up and down like the bellies of scared tree
frogs. The bent outer case of the watch littered a bare patch on the
log; its mainspring had gone the way of the fragments of the gun-metal
match safe which were lying all about, each a worn-down, twisted wisp of
metal. The spring of the eyeglasses had been confiscated long ago and
the broken crystals powdered the earth where Mr. Trimm's toes had
scraped a smooth patch. The nails of the two little fingers were worn to
the quick and splintered down into the raw flesh. There were countless
tiny scratches and mars on the locks of the handcuffs, and the steel
wristbands were dulled with blood smears and pale-red tarnishes of new
rust; but otherwise they were as stanch and strong a pair of Bean's
Latest Model Little Giant handcuffs as you'd find in any hardware store
anywhere.

The devilish, stupid malignity of the damned things! With an acid oath
Mr. Trimm raised his hands and brought them down on the log violently.
There was a double click and the bonds tightened painfully, pressing the
chafed red skin white. Mr. Trimm snatched up his hands close to his
near-sighted eyes and looked. One of the little notches on the under
s