The happy six

Swinging his limber arms, the little blue clad Chinaman scuffed behind Mr. Keith and the boys to the mouth of the unfinished well. Over this stood the temporary windlass, its huge bucket swaying to and fro above the dizzy hollow.

Kirke noticed that this hollow was deeper than when he had seen it last, and the mound of loose earth near it was considerably higher.

Mr. Keith and the two boys held the crank of the windlass with an iron grip while Sing Wung stepped inside the bucket; then turning the handle slowly backward, they lowered him deeper and deeper till he had reached the bottom of the dim-yawning cave.

“I told Captain Bradstreet I’d like to dump Sing Wung into this well, and I’ve done it,” said Kirke aside to Paul.

“The slant-eyed old villain doesn’t weigh much more than your little Shot,” responded Paul, bending over the dusky abyss.

By this time the Chinaman had scrambled out of his novel elevator and was throwing into it great spadefuls of dirt.

Mr. Keith looked at his watch. “I begin to think Yeck Wo isn’t coming. If he lived anywhere near, I’d send to inquire.”

At that moment Sing Wung piped shrilly from beneath their feet.

“Heap muchee! Pullee! Pullee!”

Kirke sprang to the windlass, crying, “Lend a hand, Paul. You and I together can hoist the bucket.”

“You’re very kind, boys,” said Mr. Keith gratefully, as he assisted them in emptying the dirt. “We’ll take turns at this business for a little while, if you’re willing. Yeck Wo may soon be here. He’s worth two Mateos.”

For a half hour the work went on briskly, Sing Wung in the depths below filling the bucket, and Mr. Keith and his young aids above ground hauling it to the surface and there dumping its contents.

Then suddenly was heard a sharp, metallic sound,—the scraping of the Chinaman’s spade against a rock.

“He’s struck hard pan,” shouted the excited lads in a breath. “Hurrah! Hurrah! Sing Wung has struck hard pan.”

“You’re right, boys, I believe you’re right,” cried Mr. Keith, hardly less excited than they. “Next thing we may come to water.”

“Are you going to blast now, Mr. Keith? Shall I bring you the drills and hammer?” asked Paul eagerly.

“Yes, Paul, if you please, and a stick of giant powder and the caps and that coil of fuse.”

After these articles had been dropped into the well, Sing Wung began the process of drilling, using the shortest drill first, and longer and longer ones as he pierced farther and farther into the hard pan. He worked quickly, turning the pointed steel instrument a little with his left hand each time he struck its blunt top with the hammer.

Having assured himself of the Chinaman’s skill, Mr. Keith soon shouted to him, “Call me as soon as the hole is three feet deep,” and followed by the boys walked away for a drink of cool water from the Mexican olla on the veranda.

“It will take the man two hours at the least,” he remarked, as he reached for the gourd, “and perhaps half a day. There is nothing yet for Mateo to do.”

In about two hours and a half they were summoned by the sharp voice of Sing Wung. He had finished the drilling and awaited further instructions.

“The next thing to do, Sing Wung, is to fit one of those percussion caps to the end of the fuse,” cried Mr. Keith, when he had reached the surface of the well.

“Yah!” growled Sing Wung, like an imprisoned bear beneath.

“Well, now tie the fuse into the paper wrapped around the stick of powder. Do you hear?”

“Yah!” louder than before.

“A half stick of the giant powder will be enough. Then drop the powder, cap, and fuse into the hole, and press down with a lot of dry earth. Do you understand?”

“No tellee! Makee holee all samee,” muttered the Chinaman sulkily. Had he not blasted hard pan before?

“Then cut off the fuse about four feet from the hole, Sing Wung.”

They heard the Chinaman yawn noisily, as if to say, “Melican man muchee talkee”; but Mr. Keith continued, undaunted,—

“And when everything is ready, Sing Wung, set fire to the end of the fuse and jump into the bucket. We’ll pull you up in a hurry.”

“Allee yight!”

Sing Wung understood perfectly. He was already cutting in two a stick of giant powder. In a short time he had buried this, as directed, lighted the fuse, and been drawn up out of the well.

The four ran to a safe distance, and two minutes later came a loud explosion. Sing Wung, after the dust and smoke had cleared away, was again let down to his work. He carried in his arms a can of black gunpowder.

“If Mateo were here to lower me, I’d go down myself to see the size of the chamber made in the rock,” said Mr. Keith. “I don’t know about trusting Sing Wung’s judgment in regard to the amount of powder to use.”

“Kirke and I can let you down, Mr. Keith,” volunteered Paul promptly.

“Yes, indeed,” rejoined Kirke. “I can lift as much as Paul can.”

“I know you’re strong for your age, Kirke, but I weigh over two hundred pounds. I’m afraid you boys might let me down in too great a hurry.”

“No, no, Mr. Keith, we’ll promise not to drop you.”

Nevertheless, after the gentleman, against his better judgment, had been prevailed upon to enter the bucket, he looked so overgrown in it—like an oak-tree in a tub—that the boys could hardly manage the windlass for laughing.

Landed at last in safety upon the bed-rock, Mr. Keith found that the hole drilled by the Chinaman had been enlarged by the giant powder to the size of a great kettle. Into this hole he poured about four quarts of black gunpowder and inserted the end of a fresh fuse. Finally he filled the rest of the cavity with fine dry earth and “tamped” this down very firmly.

“I’ve put in a heavy charge, Sing Wung,” he said, as he turned from the man and stepped back into the bucket. “After you’ve lighted the fuse, you must run for your life. You mustn’t go to sleep.”

“All yightee, no sleepee!” responded the Chinaman, who, notwithstanding his oblique eyes, could sometimes see a joke.

“The Chinese ought to understand gunpowder, considering that they invented it,” remarked Mr. Keith, as he emerged into the upper air. “I hope I sha’n’t have to go underground again to teach Sing Wung.”

The boys secretly echoed this hope, having found their host’s weight a severe strain to their muscles.

That this weight had been also a severe strain upon the rope—not a new one—had not occurred to them or to Mr. Keith, or, indeed, to Sing Wung himself.

“It is evident that Yeck Wo is not coming,” said Mr. Keith again, consulting his watch. “After this next explosion there will be a great deal of hard pan to be hoisted out, and we must have Mateo to help us. If you’ll bring him, Paul, I’ll be much obliged.”

Paul went, and was away some time. Before his return Sing Wung had finished drilling the hole in the rock and begun to put in the charge. Mr. Keith and Kirke had let the bucket down to the bottom of the well and stood ready to turn the windlass at a second’s notice.

Suddenly a faint light glimmered in the darkness below, and the Chinaman leaped into the bucket yelling,—

“Pullee! Pullee!”

He had just ignited the fuse, and as the flame crept slowly along its tube the gunpowder interwoven in its fibres gave out a quick succession of snapping sounds.

“Hold on, Sing Wung, we’ll pull you out in no time!” Mr. Keith shouted back; and he and Kirke turned the crank with a will.

But, alas! at the second revolution of the windlass the rope broke, dropping the bucket and its living freight back into the well!

Half-crazed by the accident, Sing Wung struggled to his knees with a piercing cry, and glared at the fire which drew every moment nearer, hissing and crackling.

“Step on it! Put it out, man! Quick, quick! are you crazy?” shrieked Mr. Keith, leaning down into the well at the risk of losing his balance.

The unfortunate wretch was so paralyzed with fright that he seemed powerless to obey. He could only cower upon the rocks below, muttering and mumbling.

“Good heavens, Kirke, he’ll be blown to inch-pieces! Where are his wits?” ejaculated Mr. Keith, rushing to the porch for the olla in the frantic hope of quenching the spark with water. To his dismay the jar was empty.

Kirke, left to his own devices, roared to Sing Wung, “Try to catch hold of the rope! Hang on to it! I’ll draw you up!”

But the frenzied creature never raised his eyes from that fascinating spark creeping, creeping toward the little mine of powder.

“Thunder and lightning, what ails him? I must save him if I can,” thought Kirke, hastily making fast the windlass by tying down the handle.

Never pausing to consider the risk he was taking, he grasped the dangling rope and slid down upon it, hand over hand, toward the burning fuse. Should he be in season to smother it? Ah, that was the question.

When he sprang from the end of the rope to a foothold upon the rock beside Sing Wung, the advancing flame was scarcely a finger’s length from the buried powder. Even then help might be too late.

With his heart in his throat, the lad dashed forward and planted his foot upon the spark. Oh, joy! it was soon extinguished! He had saved the life of Sing Wung!

Little cared Kirke at that moment for dizzy head or blistered hands. Even his late hatred of the suspected Chinaman was quite over-weighed by the intense satisfaction of having been the means of his rescue.

How Sing Wung, speedily rallying from his nervous shock, deftly spliced the severed rope; and how he and his deliverer, one after the other, were lifted from their gloomy quarters, will always remain to Kirke Rowe a blurred memory, for he had hardly returned to the sunlight before he fainted.

A dash of cold water restored him to consciousness, and he opened his eyes to find himself extended full length upon the lawn, and Mr. Keith and Paul bending anxiously over him. There were tears in both pairs of eyes, and Mr. Keith was saying in broken tones,—

“God bless the noble boy!”

And what more did Kirke see? What was that white object nestling lovingly against his breast, now lapping his cold cheek, now barking for joy? Was it,—he could hardly believe his own senses,—yes, surely, that was Shot, his dear lamented terrier!

“Why, Shot, you blessed good little dog, where have you been?” he exclaimed, starting up, all alive with happiness. “Why, Shot, where have you been?”

“He go heap far! Indian sabe!” said Sing Wung, who was squatting on his heels at Kirke’s feet, and had been fanning him with a green palm leaf.

“Indian? What Indian?”

“He means Mateo,” interposed Paul. “Mateo was the thief; he stole Shot, and now he pretends he didn’t. He tries to make it out that Shot strayed to his house, and that he tied him there to keep him safe for his master.”

“Keep him safe! As if my bright little dog wouldn’t have known enough to go home, if he had let him alone! I don’t believe one word of that old Indian’s story.”

“Neither do I,” said Paul. “We all know better, and we told him so. See how his rope has worn the hair from Shot’s neck.”

“What a shame! But there, I won’t fret. I have my little terrier back again, alive and well,” murmured happy Kirke.

But he felt a pang of remorse, as he looked at Sing Wung, and met that Chinaman’s eyes fixed upon him with a glance of the deepest devotion.

“Melican boy muchee good,” said the poor fellow, brokenly. “No makee fizzee, fizzee! Sing Wung no burnee!”

“I haven’t been so good to you as you think I have, Sing Wung,” said honest Kirke. “But I did put out the fuse. I’m no end thankful for that!”

Still the Chinaman lingered, struggling in vain for words to tell his feelings.

“Heap glad doggee no killee,” said he, at last, pointing his hook-nailed forefinger at Shot, who was at a safe distance from him. “Heap glad Melican boy no lose doggee!”

And detesting as he did the whole canine species, how could the simple Celestial have said anything to give stronger proof of his gratitude to Kirke?