Show adventurers CLUB HEADLINES FROM thet THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF death in two tivo tanks by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter H HELLO ELLO EVERYBODY well sir we have bill with us today bill of woodside dc were glad to have him here and bill is a doggoned sight gladder than we are even because if bill were not here hed be pushing up the daisies in a nice quiet park full of tombstones that can be said of most any of us adventurers of course but its particularly true of bill bill was working in a garage and it was the fall of 1918 the garage was in fifty fourth street between sixth and seventh avenues it there now unless they rebuilt it and bill is lucky that they have to do some rebuilding work on him it was a good sized garage that place bill worked in they did a lot of major repair work and as a cori consequence sequence there was a lot of machinery around the place on the morning that this adventure happened bill was fixing up a wrecked car that had a badly bent frame A crew of welders had come in from outside to help him and they had brought their own apparatus consisting of a hand truck on which were mounted two tanks one of those tanks contained oxygen the other acetylene gas the welders did some work on the bent frame and went off to take care of another job leaving their apparatus behind and just about the time they left frank lawter lawler came into the room where billias Bill Bil lowas was working deadly mixture of gases frank lawter lawler was a battery repairman at the garage he had run short of acetylene which he used to bum out the pitch in storage batteries and he came in to see if he could get a little out of the tank the welders had left behind them bill was busy so he told frank to help himself frank went out and got an empty oxygen tank in which he intended to get the acetylene at least frank THOUGHT that oxygen tank was empty and if such were the case everything would have been all r right N there was a terrific explosion but blit the fact was that the tank was a brand new one fully charged with oxygen frank had got hold of the wrong tank standing about eight feet away from where bill was working frank started to couple the two tanks together with a piece of copper tubing he asked bill for a wrench to fasten the he couplings and bill still busy told him where he could find one then after fastening the couplings up tight he turned on the valves of both tanks well sir oxygen and acetylene alone in their respective tanks are a fairly respectable pair of gases but mixed together they form one of the most inflammable and explosive compounds that you will find anywhere and they were sure being mixed up in that hookup of tanks that frank had arranged the tank valves been open more than ten seconds when bill smelled gas then he looked over and saw what frank was doing immediately he caught the situation and shouted to frank to get away from those tanks before they blew at the same time he dropped his work sprang to liis his feet and took one step forward there was a terrific explosion what bill had intended to do was to grab frank and drag him away bodily from the danger area but it was too late he took just one step forward and there was a terrific explosion 1 all the thunder in the world seemed to come together in one great resounding roar the ground shook the building rocked and swayed the garage root roof lifted completely off its steel girder beams and the walls cracked and tumbled in bill was picked up by the force of the explosion and catapulted across the lae floor for thirty two feet he flew through the air then he I 1 landed hard but on something that was soft aa a pile of cotton waste stacked in one corner of the garage he sat there in a daze for a minute wondering if he had been hurt he feel any pain HE FEEL ANYTHING what frightened bill there a bit of sensation in his whole body had there been he would have known that he was alive and had a chance to recover but this business of having no feelings at all it was just too much like being dead bill sat like that for a minute then he began to lose consciousness ness dying bill was very much afraid so and that was the last he knew tor for a while thou thought lit his arnis arms were gone meanwhile the whole neighborhood had felt the force of the explosion windows were shattered for a mile around fire apparatus emergency patrol cars ambulances came flying to the spot from all directions they put bill in one of the ambulances and carried him os off to the hospital poor frank lawter lawler went off to the morgue he had been killed instantly when bill regained consciousness he felt numb all over where are my arms he asked the ambulance doctor who was working over him for it felt to him as if his arms both of them were gone it was a long time before he would believe the doctor when he told him that his arms were there all right that lie he was only suffering from shock bill is just as sound as ever now after a month in bed and his only regret is that he have saved frank lawter lawler copyright service |