CHAPTER VIII
FIRE UNDERGROUND
No two cities are exactly alike. New York, Boston, London, Paris; all these have their subways, giant tunnels through which thousands upon thousands of workers are hurled to their day of toil. The metropolis of our story has no subway; yet far down beneath its busy streets forty, fifty, sixty feet underground, one still finds life. Forty miles of tunnel, a great spider-web network, pass beneath this city.
It was into one of these tunnels that Curlie Carson, while in pursuit of the man who had snatched the precious package from beneath his arm, had entered.
The roaring sound he had heard was the approach and the passing of a tunnel train. But such a train as it was! A narrow, box-like electrical engine shooting out purple sparks; a man with his hand on a lever; a dozen cars the size of a city dumpcart, only narrower and deeper—this was the train; for these trains carry only freight.
Day and night, year in and year out, this endless procession of tiny trains carries coal to the heating plants of giant skyscrapers and bears the cinders away. By this route, too, thousands of tons of merchandise, shoes and suits, cheese, cabbages, silverware, and socks find their way to the great city department stores or from factory to ship or train.
How many dwellers in the great city are conscious of this life that throbs on and on beneath them as they walk the city’s streets? Perhaps one in a hundred. Curlie Carson had not so much as heard of these tunnels. Yet he was passing down the narrow stairway that led to a small landing platform. In less than a moment he would be called upon to make an instant decision which might spell victory or utter defeat. And this decision would have to be made in ignorance of that which lay beyond him in those dim caverns.
It is often so in life. Always we are preparing ourselves for an emergency. Are our eyes bright, our minds clear and free from low thoughts that drug the soul? If so, then we are ready for the sudden, the unexpected. Curlie was ready.
The thing that happened was this: As the boy came stumbling down the last twenty steps of that long stairway, he heard again the ever-increasing rumble that told of an approaching train. As he stepped at last upon the dimly lighted platform he saw the man he sought at the far end. The package was under his arm. He was looking the other way.
“Now I have him!” he thought, and his heart beat a loud tattoo against his ribs.
Curlie was slim but strong, and agile as a cat. He had a clear mind. He kept himself fit. He had no dread of an encounter.