Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/171

159 "The water was rising. It rose so fast that the pump was drowned before it could be started again. We turned the steam on the big duplex, up above; but the duplex, waiting idle, had n't been kept in readiness. Some one had neglected it. It did n't answer the throttle. I threw off my coat and jumped down on the platform where it had been planted, at the foot of the square dam, fifteen feet below the level of the outer water—and found the suction buried in the sand. I called to Larsen to lift it out with a derrick. And Larsen, running about in the half light, like a gorilla with his long arms, slung the tackle and worked the winch and cleared the suction.

"The man at the shaft reported that the water was rising in a steady flow.

"We threw the steam into the duplex again. It did n't lift. I saw there was something wrong in the cylinder. When Larsen and I got the cylinder head off, we found the ring of the piston broken. It was the work of hours to mend it, and the water was rising at the rate of an inch and a half a minute.

"Well—not to bore you with exciting details—before we had repaired that piston, the water was up to our waists. While we were replacing the cylinder head and setting the valves, it came up to our armpits. We worked at the nuts and bolts until the water reached our chins. We could n't finish. I had to trust what few nuts I could get on to hold the head. And I had to drag Larsen out by the collar.

"When we pulled the throttle on the pump, it