“Hold tight, little girl,” was all Roderick said as he felt the confiding clasp of her tiny arms about his neck.
Many of the people below besides the almost frenzied mother were watching the heroic deed with bated breath. Just then a cry of terror went up. The great wall of a burning building across the street was toppling outward and a moment later collapsed, burying many unhappy victims beneath the avalanche of broken brick and mortar.
Whether the little girl’s mother had been caught by the falling wall or not Roderick had no means of determining. A choking cloud of dust, ash, soot and smoke enveloped him in stifling darkness; he could hardly breathe. The very air was heated and suffocating. But down and down he went with his little burden clinging tightly to him. Arriving at the awnings he swung himself over, secured a momentary foothold, then grasped the braces with his hands and dropped to the littered sidewalk below.
The mother of the girl was nowhere to be seen. He turned down the street to get away from the horrible sight of the dead and the piteous cries of the dying. He had scarcely reached the next corner when the child, who was mutely clinging to him as if indeed she knew he was her savior, released her arms and called out gleefully: “Oh, there’s mama, mama, mama.” Then the mother stood before him, weeping now for joy, and through her tears Roderick saw a face of radiance and a smile of gratitude that time or eternity would never erase from his memory.
Nothing mattered now—her little girl was safe in her arms. “I don’t know who you are, sir,” she exclaimed, “but I owe to you the life of my child, and may the good God bless you.”
But this was no time for thanks. Roderick was looking upward.
“Come quickly,” he shouted, “come this way—hasten.” And he pulled them down a side street and away from another sky-scraper that was trembling and wavering as if about to fall.
They turned, and ran along a street that was still free from fire and led toward the St. Francis Hotel and the little park fronting it where Roderick had sat at dawn. Carefully he guided the woman’s steps, keeping to the middle of the street, for the sidewalk was encumbered with debris and threatened by partly dislodged brickwork above. Here and there the roadway was rumpled and rough as a washboard by reason of the earthquake, while at places were great gaping fissures where the earth had been split open many feet deep. But soon they were in the open square, and mother and child were safe. Knowing this, Roderick allowed them to pass on—to pass out of his life without even the asking or the giving of names.
For there was other work to his hand; he hurried back to the last crossing. There under the fallen débris, was a woman obviously of refinement and wealth whose life had been vanquished without warning. One hand was extended above the wreckage. It was shapely and encircled with a bracelet, while a single diamond solitaire ring adorned her finger—perhaps a betrothal ring. Two human ghouls—not men—had whipped out their ready knives and were in the very act of severing the finger to obtain the jewel. It was these brutes that Roderick had come back to face.
Like a flash he leaped forward and with a well directed sledge-hammer blow felled one of these would-be robbers of the dead. Then he grappled with the second scoundrel. The man in his grip was none other than the outlaw, Bud Bledsoe!