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Show "HOTBOX ON THE HUB OF HELL" Chapter XXIII At first the roar only half-wakened me. Living close to the railroad, I slept through train noises. But somehow this was different, a grinding roar that shook the air and shuddered in the ground. I sat up. It was after midnight. The sound was louder than any freight train. It quickly increased. The roar enveloped everything. Suddenly the house rocked. Something shook it as Shep might shake a rabbit. I almost fell out of bed. Then the roar receded and the shaking ceased. Downstairs Father and Mother were talking in alarmed tones, both at once. I went to the head of the stairs. Father was already at the foot. "All right up there?" he called. "Sure," I said. "But I nearly fell out of bed. What was it?" "Earthquake," Father answered. "Must have been." The house had stopped creaking. The roar had died out in the distance, toward the south. "Let's talk it over in the morning." And we went back to bed. That quake caused Father to send for a geology book that told stirring stories about mountain-building movements in the West. We were most fascinated by the origin of the volcanic mountains to the east and why we had our Hot Springs. He learned that great upheavals raised the Sierra Nevadas of California and the Wasatches just east of us. They built a huge |