Show 0 V ft ADVENTURERS ADVENTURERS' 1 J v CLUB V i Jj J w 1 f r tf if 1 I f I. I 3 Buried or Eaten By FLOYD GIBBONS Famous Headline Hunter Y YOU OU know boys and girls one of the most horrible things that can happen to a person is to be buried alive For a long longtime longtime longtime time I thought it was absolutely the most horrible but since Ive I've read the letter I 1 got the other day from Edward V. V Ive I've had to change my mind about that For Ed was actually In n spot once back In the winter of or 07 1000 that was a lot worse than Just merely being burled alive As a matter of fact he was burled alive and his only hope In those terrible moments was that nothing worse worfie would happen to him before It was all over For If Ed got out of that Improvised tomb of his in the one way he could imagine himself escaping It would only be to get eaten alive And doggone It who wouldn't rather be burled buried than eaten From the sound sound of ot that last paragraph you'd think this adventure happ happened ned In Africa or India where there are plenty plent of ot old tombs to be be burled In and plenty of ot lions and tigers to do the eating You Can Be Eaten Alive in a Civilized Land But It wasn't that sort of ot tomb Ed got Into and It wasn't an nn animal that was going to do the eating No No-Ed's No Ed's Eds adventure took place right here In this country country nt at Lisbon Falls Maine In a n pulp and paper mill that was located there Ed then a boy of sixteen had just started working in the chip loft of the pulp mill milk His job was to see seo that the big hoppers hop pers full of wood chips were In good working order and supplying a steady flow of chips to the big digester tanks down below The hoppers that Ed took care of were continually filling continually ally being emptied Huge luge conveyor belts brought the chips up UJ from below and threw them Into the tops of ot the tIte boxes Trapdoors Were the Mouth of This Cannibal Great trapdoors In the floor Hoor opened at nt Intervals to let them fall Call Into the digester digester bIg big chemical tanks tank filled with acids one of which stood directly beneath each of or the hoppers Ed used to have to get down into the hopp hoppers rs to shovel the chips this way v and that and there was a bell that rang just before before before be be- fore the hopper trap was v opened to warn him to get back on the solid floor Ed was l kept ept pretty busy shoveling chips that first night night so so b bisy isy that when he shoveled some chips hips against the warning bell he didn't notice It A Landslide of Chips Was Falling Failing From the Hopper The first Intimation he had that an anything was wrong was when while standing on a bed of ot chips directly over er the trap the door opened without without without with with- out warning naming It was a big pile of chips Ed was standing on That saved him from an Immediate plunge into the acid vat below As It was he felt the tho ground fall from under him as a ton or so of finely mashed wood wood fell from beneath his feet Before his body went through the trap though the door closed For the moment he was safe from the thc vat But nut In the meantime a landslide of ot chips was falling from the sides of ot the hopper burying him Smother or Sizzle Sizzle Sizzle-It It Was Eds Ed's Choice The rush of chips from Crom the sl sides es of or the vat at covered him up to his chin He struggled to work worl himself free but he couldn't move a muscle and and nil all the time more chips pouring In iu from rom the e conveyor or belts were falling on his unprotected head Ed screamed for help but nobody heard him He cried and shouted again agall and again as the rising tide of wooden splinters mounted to his nose nose his his eyes Dust got Into his nostrils and choked him but he couldn't move a muscle to brush those chips away from his face He lIe began to find It difficult to breathe and his repeated shouts for tor help were d to a meaningless gurgle There was only one olle way Ed Ell could think of or to get out of that hopper and that would send him to a n worse fate than was already his Any mInute minute minute min mIn- ute now the trap would be opening for another bunch of chips and und this time Ed would go JO with them them down down Into a vat yat full tull of sulphuric to be eaten alive by the acids acid's biting sting Even a Youth Sometimes Loses Hope And he began to wonder then which It would be suffocation be-suffocation suffocation In the hopper or a more a agonizing death In the big digester tanks 15 feet teet below below the spot where he now rested The chips were wore up to the top of his head now now now-Ed Ed was almost completely covered A kid of sixteen will cling cUng to hope for a along along along long time and it has to be a mighty tough spot that m makes him lose it it But Ed lost hope then and gave himself up for lost Then Ihen even as he hall hail resigned ned himself to fate tate he Jc heard a mans man's voice shouting It was Wallace Fowler tl the e foreman warning the men below not to touch the hopper and summoning help to the poor kid burled over his head In the chip box bas Wallace had come up to the chip loft to see how Ed was getting on on and found him getting on very ery badly Indeed It took a lot of hard work worl to get Ed out of that chip box boa but when they'd finally dug him Jim loose he quit his Job then nuts and there Maybe Id I'd take talc a chance and face death for my 10 dollars a n week says Ed But Ill I'll be darned If It I was going to face two deaths again for any amount of money C B Service |