"San Francisco," Jerry answered, briefly.
Spillane groaned, and fiercely drove his clenched fist into the palm of
the other hand. His wife was crying more audibly, and Jerry could hear
her murmuring, "And daddy's dyin', dyin'!"
The tears welled up in his own eyes, and he stood irresolute, not
knowing what he should do. But the man decided for him.
"Look here, kid," he said, with determination, "the wife and me are
goin' over on this here cable of yours! Will you run it for us?"
Jerry backed slightly away. He did it unconsciously, as if recoiling
instinctively from something unwelcome.
"Better see if Hall's back," he suggested.
"And if he ain't?"
Again Jerry hesitated.
"I'll stand for the risk," Spillane added. "Don't you see, kid, we've
simply got to cross!"
Jerry nodded his head reluctantly.
"And there ain't no use waitin' for Hall," Spillane went on. "You know
as well as me he ain't back from Cripple Cow this time of day! So come
along and let's get started."
No wonder that Mrs. Spillane seemed terrified as they helped her
into the ore-car--so Jerry thought, as he gazed into the apparently
fathomless gulf beneath her. For it was so filled with rain and cloud,
hurtling and curling in the fierce blast, that the other shore, seven
hundred feet away, was invisible, while the cliff at their feet dropped
sheer down and lost itself in the swirling vapor. By all appearances it
might be a mile to bottom instead of two hundred feet.
"All ready?" he asked.
"Let her go!" Spillane shouted, to make himself heard above the roar of
the wind.
He had clambered in beside his wife, and was holding one of her hands in
his.
Jerry looked upon this with disapproval. "You'll need all your hands for
holdin' on, the way the wind's yowlin.'"
The man and the woman shifted their hands accordingly, tightly gripping
the sides of the car, and Jerry slowly and carefully released the brake.
The drum began to revolve as the endless cable passed round it, and the
car slid slowly out into the chasm, its trolley wheels rolling on the
stationary cable overhead, to which it was suspended.
It was not the first time Jerry had worked the cable, but it was the
first time he had done so away from the supervising eye of his father.
By means of the brake he regulated the speed of the car. It needed
regulating, for at times, caught by the stronger gusts of wind, it
swayed violently back and forth; and once, just before it was swallowed
up in a rain squall, it seemed about to spill out its human contents.
After that Jerry had no way of knowing where the car was except by means
of the cable. This he watched keenly as it glided around the drum.
"Three hundred feet," he breathed to himself, as the cable markings went
by, "three hundred and fifty, four hundred; four hundred and----"
The cable had stopped. Jerry threw off the brake, but it did not move.
He caught the cable with his hands and tried to start it by tugging
smartly. Something had gone wrong. What? He could not guess; he could
not see. Looking up, he could vaguely make out the empty car, which had
been crossing from the opposite cliff at a speed equal to that of the
loaded car. It was about two hundred and fifty feet away. That meant, he
knew, that somewhere in the gray obscurity, two hundred feet above the
river and two hundred and fifty feet from the other bank, Spillane and
his wife were suspended and stationary.
Three times Jerry shouted with all the shrill force of his lungs, but
no answering cry came out of the storm. It was impossible for him to
hear them or to make himself heard. As he stood for a moment, thinking
rapidly, the flying clouds seemed to thin and lift. He caught a brief
glimpse of the swollen Sacramento beneath, and a briefer glimpse of the
car and the man and woman. Then the clouds descended thicker than ever.
The boy examined the drum closely, and found nothing the matter with it.
Evidently it was the drum on the other side that had gone wrong. He was
appalled at thought of the man and woman out there in the midst of the
storm, hanging over the abyss, rocking back and forth in the frail car
and ignorant of what was taking place on shore. And he did not like to
think of their hanging there while he went round by the Yellow Dragon
cable to the other drum.
But he remembered a block and tackle in the tool-house, and ran and
brought it. They were double blocks, and he murmured aloud, "A purchase
of four," as he made the tackle fast to the endless cable. Then he
heaved upon it, heaved until it seemed that his arms were being drawn
out from their sockets and that his shoulder muscles would be ripped
asunder. Yet the cable did not budge. Nothing remained but to cross over
to the other side.
He was already soaking wet, so he did not mind the rain as he ran over
the trail to the Yellow Dragon. The storm was with him, and it was easy
going, although there was no Hall at the other end of it to man the
brake for him and regulate the speed of the car. This he did for
himself, however, by means of a stout rope, which he passed, with a
turn, round the stationary cable.
As the full force of the wind struck him in mid-air, swaying the cable
and whistling and roaring past it, and rocking and careening the car, he
appreciated more fully what must be the condition of mind of Spillane
and his wife. And this appreciation gave strength to him, as, safely
across, he fought his way up the other bank, in the teeth of the gale,
to the Yellow Dream cable.
To his consternation, he found the drum in thorough working order.
Everything was running smoothly at both ends. Where was the hitch? In
the middle, without a doubt.
From this side, the car containing Spillane was only two hundred and
fifty feet away. He could make out the man and woman through the
whirling vapor, crouching in the bottom of the car and exposed to the
pelting rain and the full fury of the wind. In a lull between the
squalls he shouted to Spillane to examine the trolley of the car.
Spillane heard, for he saw him rise up cautiously on his knees, and with
his hands go over both trolley-wheels. Then he turned his face toward
the bank.
"She's all right, kid!"
Jerry heard the words, faint and far, as from a remote distance. Then
what was the matter? Nothing remained but the other and empty car, which
he could not see, but which he knew to be there, somewhere in that
terrible gulf two hundred feet beyond Spillane's car.
His mind was made up on the instant. He was only fourteen years old,
slightly and wirily built; but his life had been lived among the
mountains, his father had taught him no small measure of "sailoring,"
and he was not particularly afraid of heights.
In the tool-box by the drum he found an old monkey-wrench and a short
bar of iron, also a coil of fairly new Manila rope. He looked in vain
for a piece of board with which to rig a "boatswain's chair." There was
nothing at hand but large planks, which he had no means of sawing, so he
was compelled to do without the more comfortable form of saddle.
The saddle he rigged was very simple. With the rope he made merely a
large loop round the stationary cable, to which hung the empty car. When
he sat in the loop his hands could just reach the cable conveniently,
and where the rope was likely to fray against the cable he lashed his
coat, in lieu of the old sack he would have used had he been able to
find one.
These preparations swiftly completed, he swung out over the chasm,
sitting in the rope saddle and pulling himself along the cable by his
hands. With him he carried the monkey-wrench and short iron bar and a
few spare feet of rope. It was a slightly up-hill pull, but this he did
not mind so much as the wind. When the furious gusts hurled him back and
forth, sometimes half twisting him about, and he gazed down into the
gray depths, he was aware that he was afraid. It was an old cable. What
if it should break under his weight and the pressure of the wind?
It was fear he was experiencing, honest fear, and he knew that there was
a "gone" feeling in the pit of his stomach, and a trembling of the knees
which he could not quell.
But he held himself bravely to the task. The cable was old and worn,
sharp pieces of wire projected from it, and his hands were cut and
bleeding by the time he took his first rest, and held a shouted
conversation with Spillane. The car was directly beneath him and only a
few feet away, so he was able to explain the condition of affairs and
his errand.
"Wish I could help you," Spillane shouted at him as he started on, "but
the wife's gone all to pieces! Anyway, kid, take care of yourself! I got
myself in this fix, but it's up to you to get me out!"
"Oh, I'll do it!" Jerry shouted back. "Tell Mrs. Spillane that she'll be
ashore now in a jiffy!"
In the midst of pelting rain, which half-blinded him, swinging from side
to side like a rapid and erratic pendulum, his torn hands paining him
severely and his lungs panting from his exertions and panting from the
very air which the wind sometimes blew into his mouth with strangling
force, he finally arrived at the empty car.
A single glance showed him that he had not made the dangerous journey in
vain. The front trolley-wheel, loose from long wear, had jumped the
cable, and the cable was now jammed tightly between the wheel and the
sheave-block.
One thing was clear--the wheel must be removed from the block. A second
thing was equally clear--while the wheel was being removed the car would
have to be fastened to the cable by the rope he had brought.
At the end of a quarter of an hour, beyond making the car secure, he
had accomplished nothing. The key which bound the wheel on its axle was
rusted and jammed. He hammered at it with one hand and held on the best
he could with the other, but the wind persisted in swinging and twisting
his body, and made his blows miss more often than not. Nine-tenths of
the strength he expended was in trying to hold himself steady. For fear
that he might drop the monkey-wrench he made it fast to his wrist with
his handkerchief.
At the end of half an hour Jerry had hammered the key clear, but he
could not draw it out. A dozen times it seemed that he must give up
in despair, that all the danger and toil he had gone through were for
nothing. Then an idea came to him, and he went through his pockets with
feverish haste, and found what he sought--a ten-penny nail.
But for that nail, put in his pocket he knew not when or why, he would
have had to make another trip over the cable and back. Thrusting the
nail through the looped head of the key, he at last had a grip, and in
no time the key was out.
Then came punching and prying with the iron bar to get the wheel itself
free from where it was jammed by the cable against the side of the
block. After that Jerry replaced the wheel, and by means of the rope,
heaved up on the car till the trolley once more rested properly on the
cable.
All this took time. More than an hour and a half had elapsed since his
arrival at the empty car. And now, for the first time, he dropped out of
his saddle and down into the car. He removed the detaining ropes, and
the trolley-wheels began slowly to revolve. The car was moving, and he
knew that somewhere beyond, although he could not see, the car of
Spillane was likewise moving, and in the opposite direction.
There was no need for a brake, for his weight sufficiently
counterbalanced the weight in the other car; and soon he saw the cliff
rising out of the cloud depths and the old familiar drum going round and
round.
Jerry climbed out and made the car securely fast. He did it deliberately
and carefully, and then, quite unhero-like, he sank down by the drum,
regardless of the pelting storm, and burst out sobbing.
There were many reasons why he sobbed--partly from the pain of his
hands, which was excruciating; partly from exhaustion; partly from
relief and release from the nerve-tension he had been under for so long;
and in a large measure from thankfulness that the man and woman were
saved.
They were not there to thank him; but somewhere beyond that howling,
storm-driven gulf he knew they were hurrying over the trail toward the
Clover Leaf.
Jerry staggered to the cabin, and his hand left the white knob red with
blood as he opened the door, but he took no notice of it.
He was too proudly contented with himself, for he was certain that he
had done well, and he was honest enough to admit to himself that he had
done well. But a small regret arose and persisted in his thoughts--if
his father had only been there to see!