ut in twain as if made of lard, for when a wedged tool
resumes its downward plunge it straightens those coils above ground in
the twinkling of an eye. Instinct, rather than reason, warned Buddy not
to check the blinding revolutions of the bull wheel. Without thought he
leaped forward into the midst of those swiftly forming loops, and as he
landed upon the slippery floor he clenched his fist and struck with all
the power he could put behind his massive arm. Gray's back was to him,
the blow was like that of a walking beam, and it sent the elder man
flying as a tenpin is hurled ahead of a bowling ball. Buddy fell, too.
He went sprawling. As he slid across the muddy floor he felt the steel
cable writhing under him like a thing alive, and the touch of it as it
streamed into the well burned his flesh. He kicked and fought it as he
would have fought the closing folds of a python, for the bailer was
falling again and the wire loops were vanishing as the coils in a
whiplash vanish during its flight.

Buddy's booted legs were thrown high, he was tossed aside like a thing
of paper, but blind, half stunned, he scrambled back to his post. By
this time the whole structure of the derrick was rocking to the mad
gyrations of the bull wheel; the giant spool was spinning with a speed
that threatened to send it flying, like the fragments of a bursting
bomb, but the youth understood dimly the danger of stopping it too
suddenly--to fetch up that plunging weight at the cable end might snap
the line, collapse the derrick, "jim" the well. Buddy weaved dizzily in
his tracks; nevertheless, his hand was steady, and he applied a
gradually increasing pressure to the brake. Nor did he take his eyes
from his task until the drum had ceased revolving and the runaway
bailer hung motionless in the well.

When he finally looked about it seemed to him that he had lived a long
time and was very old. Gray lay motionless where he had fallen, and his
body was twisted into a shockingly unnatural posture. He was bleeding.
Allie Briskow was bending over him. Other dim, dreamlike figures were
swarming out of the gloom and into the radiance of the derrick lights;
there was a far-away clamor of shouting voices. Buddy Briskow felt
himself growing deathly sick.

They carried Gray to the bunk house, and his limbs hung loosely, his
head lolled in a manner terrifying to Buddy and his sister. As they
stumbled along beside the group, the girl cried:

"Oh, my God! Oh, my