Show A F club the iron blazt by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter HERES FJ ERES a yarn with more than a touch of the sinister in it I 1 JL fiction writers go a long way to make their villains seem evil and menacing but the villain of yarn have to give an inch to any of them in fact he might have stepped right out of the celluloid of one of those old fashioned serial thrillers we all used to follow so religiously in the days when the motion picture industry was young and rough and ready and a good show could be seen for a nickel with three cases of heart failure thrown in free with every reel but first lets introduce the hero of the story boys and girls step up and meet john L dumont of little falls N J john gets the degree of distinguished adventurer Aden for telling us this tale of his eerie encounter with our villain on a dark lonely road in nova scotia in august 1926 john was just a youngster of sixteen at ahn time he was in nova scotia visiting some friends who lived in the little town of baddick baddeck Bad deck there he met another lad dolph rogers who was working for the canadian government and dolph introduced him to two young ladies from washington D C who were spending the summer in the north they went to a dance in sydney the four of them started to pal around together and one night they decided to go to a dance at the nearby town of sydney one of the girls had a car and they went to sydney in that they spent the evening dancing and started back about 1230 john was driving the car the girl who owned it sat in front beside him the other two were in the back seat it was a dark night and the gravel roads of nova scotia are narrow about ten miles out of sydney john saw another car approaching from the opposite direction traffic is never heavy on the nova scotia roads this was almost the first car they had bad met since leaving sydney and since the quarters were sort of cramped on that narrow road john pulled over to one side and slowed down almost to a stop to let the other machine pass As the other car came closer john noticed that it was zigzagging back and forth across the road lie he jammed on his brakes but tat that did no good the weaving car roared toward them hem careening to right and left it crashed into the left side of the machine john was driving crumpled a fender and shot past them coming to a stop some seventy five or eighty feet beyond then the excitement started john know what the etiquette of the road was in nova scotia but back home in new jersey where two cars collided the thing to do was get the other fellows license he climbed out of the damaged car 0 Z the blow caught him in the back of the neck and started walking back As he did he noticed a heavyset heavy set man getting out of the other machine and also another man who was still sitting in the car dolph rogers in the meantime had climbed out of the back seat and followed john john walked up to the heavyset heavy set man who was standing in the middle of the road and said let me see your drivers license and then suddenly the melodrama was on the burly man shouted ill show you my drivers license you and he lashed out suddenly with his right arm jolan john had just time to turn then the blow caught him it caught him on the back of the neck and he heard a tearing sound suddenly in the dark he was conscious that his bis coat was hanging from his two arms its tails flapping at the front of his thighs it had been ripped completely in halt in the he back from top to bottom and while john was pondering this strange phenomenon no he saw doina running up heard beard hl him cry out LOOK OUT THE HOOK RUN KUN his right hand was a steel claw then john saw it in the reflected gow glow of the cars head lamps he got a glimpse of the burly fellows right hand it a hand at all but a STEEL CLAW strapped to the end of his arm it must have been razor sharp he knew to cut his coat in half at one sweep of the thickset thick set fellows arm and at the same time he realized that the man was dangerously drunk if there ever was a man to fit the character of the sinister villain of the movie serials this fellow was it thrown into a panic by his very appearance john started to run to his dismay he could hear the burly fellows footsteps pounding along in hot pursuit 1 I was just sixteen says john iani and in tair fair condition I 1 still believe that it if id been time I 1 would have lowered by a comfortable margin all the existing records tor for the mile run I 1 dont know bow far the he man chased me but the next time I 1 looked back he had given up 1 I was alone on the dark road and a good many miles away from town presently I 1 saw the lights of a car coming my way and as it came nearer I 1 recognized it as that of my friends the girl who owned it had driven it up the road while the man was chasing me had passed him and had finally found me ruffian guilian was killed in a brawl they drove back to baddeck baddick Bad deck and next morning they learned that the man with the claw hand was a notorious gentleman around that section the police went to look for him but he had skipped out of his usual haunts and to be found before john left nova scotia however he had news of him the fellow was killed in a brawl in a saloon near sydney ive never been able to think of that steel claw without wincing says john it he had been a little closer he probably would have ripped my neck open 0 0 service |