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