Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/107

 home, disappointed, rage gnawing at his heart.

All night he lay in anguish. That he, the champion smasher, should fail at an ordinary wooden box was bad enough, but the noble fellow felt most for the reputation of his employers. That any package should escape uninjured from that line would involve a loss of prestige terrible to think of.

Next morning, wearied and dispirited, he borrowed a sledge-hammer. Taking the box into a quiet corner, and divesting himself of his coat, he took a mighty swing with the hammer, and brought it down with all his force upon the lid. The hammer-head flew into a million fragments, and the shaft jerked away into space. The box actually seemed to smile at him. Poor Bill went sorrowfully away, and, leaving a request that the box be still kept at the station (for, at least, he could delay it), he paid for the sledge-hammer and took to his bed. It was as well he did. For he was so down in the mouth as quite to lose his regular form, and probably would have failed at an ordinary packing-case.

After a while, however, a notion struck Bill. He jumped up and bolted Poor downstairs shouting "Eureka!" Bill didn't know what the word meant, you see, but he had a sort of general notion that it was the correct thing to shout when you ran downstairs without waiting to dress. He went back, however, and put on his uniform, because it struck him that the thing should be done in style, and with all proper form and ceremony. Then he went off to the depôt, feeling like a new man.

He dragged the trunk a little along the line, and shoved it across the rails just as the late express came up. and waited. Then he lay by and waited.

Presently the express came along. Bill sat up and looked for his vindication. There was a rush, a roar of fifty thunders, and the engine passed by with the cow catcher smashed off. Bill didn't trouble about the train, but rushed for the fragments of the box.

Weep, O mountains of Adirondack! Howl, O mighty catawampus of the prairie! There lay the box without a mark! A little longer, and perhaps a little flatter, Bill fancied, but then Bill's mind was a bit disordered, you see.

Then Bill Erie's heroism came out strong.

"A mighty conqueror cannot survive a defeat," he said. "I have hitherto been conqueror among the destroyers of trunks. I will die, but my enemy shall perish with me."

With all his remaining strength the noble fellow dragged that box to the very top of