nd yelled out, "Haul away!" He
could hear the men grunting above as they turned the handle.

When he had been hauled about fifteen feet there was a crack; the old
windlass had collapsed, and he went souse, feet first, into the water.
He sank till he touched the bottom, then rose gasping to the surface.
A head appeared, framed in the circle of the well, and a slow, drawling
colonial voice said:

"Gord! boss, are you hurt? The windlass is broke."

"No, I'm not hurt. Can't you fix that windlass?" roared Hugh.

"No!" came the answer sepulchrally down the well. "She's cooked."

"Well, hold on," said Hugh. "I believe I can get up." He braced his feet
against one side of the well, and his shoulders against the other, and
so, working them alternately, he raised himself inch by inch. It is a
feat that requires a good man to perform, and the strain was very great.
Grimly he kept at it, and drew nearer and nearer to the top. Then, at
last, a hand seized him; half-sick with over-exertion, he struggled out
and fell gasping to the ground. For a minute or two the universe was
turning round with him. The Chinee and the strange white man moved in a
kind of flicker, unreal as the figures in a cinematograph. Then all was
blank for a while.

When he came to, he was lying by the well with a bag under his head, and
the strange white man was trying to pour some spirits down his throat.

"I'm--all right--thanks!" gasped Hugh.

"By Gord, Mister, it's lucky I happened to come along," said the
stranger. "You an' Sampson'd ha' both been drownded. That Chow couldn't
haul him up. Dead beat the Chow was when I came. I jis' come ridin' up,
thinkin' to get a few pound of onions to take out to the camp, and I
see the Chow a-haulin' and a-haulin' at that windlass like as if he
was tryin' to pull the bottom out of the well. I rides up and sings out
"What ho! Chaney, what yer got?" And he says, "Ketch hold," he says,
and that was all he could say; he was fair beat. And then I heard you
singing out, and I says to meself, "Is the whole popperlation of the
Northern Territory down this here well? How many more is there, Chancy?"
I says. And then bung goes the old windlass, and lucky it ketched in
the top of the well; if it had fell down on the top of you, it'd ha'
stiffened you all right. And how you got up that well beats me. By
Cripes, it does."

"How's the--man that--was down with me?" said Hugh slowly.

"What, Sampson? 'E's all right. Couldn't k