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?