. Not seeing, or confused, he missed it, and the rope,
with a groan from the crowd, settled back. The agile cowboy caught it
again into a loop and shot it upward, that time fairly over
Fitzpatrick's head.

"Make fast!" roared Siclone. Fitzpatrick shouted back, and the two men
above drew taut. Hand over hand Siclone Clark crept up, like a monkey,
bracing his feet against the smoking clapboards, edging away from the
vomiting windows, swinging on the single strand of horse-hair, and
followed by a hundred prayers unsaid.

Men who didn't know what tears were tried to cry out to keep the choking
from their throats. It seemed an age before he covered the last five
feet, and the men above caught frantically at his hands.

Drawing himself over the casement, he was lost with them a moment;
then, from behind a burst of smoke, they saw him rigging a maverick
saddle on Fitzpatrick; saw Fitzpatrick lifted by Clark and the nurse
over the sill, lowered like a wooden tie, whirling and swinging, down
into twenty arms below. Before the trainmen had got the engineer loose,
the nurse, following, slid like a cat down the incline; but not an
instant too soon. A tongue of flame lit the gable from below and licked
the horse-hair up into a curling, frizzling thread; and Siclone stood
alone in the upper casement.

It seemed for the moment he stood there the crowd would go mad. The
shock and the shouting seemed to confuse him; it may have been the hot
air took his breath. They yelled to him to jump; but he swayed
uncertainly. Once, an instant after that, he was seen to look down; then
he drew back from the casement. I never saw him again.

The flames wrapped the building in a yellow fury; by daylight the big
barracks were a smouldering pile of ruins. So little water was thrown
that it was nearly nightfall before we could get into the wreck. The
tragedy had blotted out the feud between the strikers and the new men.
Side by side they worked, as side by side Siclone and Fitzpatrick had
stood in the morning, striving to uncover the mystery of the missing
man. Next day twice as many men were in the ruins.

Fitzpatrick, while we were searching, called continually for Siclone
Clark. We didn't tell him the truth; indeed, we didn't know it; nor do
we yet know it. Every brace, every beam, every brick was taken from the
charred pile. Every foot of cinders, every handful of ashes sifted; but
of a human being the searchers found never a trace. Not a bone