"We've struck water--a big flow--I can hear it--it'll break through any minute!"
"That's fine! Splendid!"
"You don't understand!" Rufus cried, desperately. "I'm liable to be drowned before you can h'ist me out of here. I can heard it roar--like a cloudburst!"
"Tell me about that deal between you and Canby," Wallie suggested.
"Let down the bucket!" Rufus chattered.
"Couldn't think of it. My eyeteeth are coming through and I don't like to interrupt 'em."
"I'll make a clean breast of it."
"I don't want to pollute my well unless I have to, but that's the only way you'll get out of there," Wallie told him, grimly.
"Canby's out to break you in one way and another. He thought there was no water over here and he paid me to talk you into diggin' for it. He seen me and my boys eat one day in the mess house and he said 'twould break the Bank of England to board us, so he wanted that clause in the contract, and after sixty-eight feet he paid us, besides a hundred and fifty dollars bonus. I done wrong, Mr. Macpherson, and I freely admit it!"
"And you like my cooking, Rufus? You like your food highly seasoned with plenty of soda in the pancakes and dough-goods?"
"Yes, Mr. Macpherson," whined Rufus. "I never complained about your cookin', I've nothin' against you personal, and I'll knock off somethin' on the bill for bringin' in water if you'll jest let down that----" A screech finished the sentence. Then: "C-r-rr-ripes! She's busted through! She's comin' like a river!"
He jumped and clawed at the sides in his frenzy, and Wallie could see that Rufus well might do so, for even as Wallie looked the water rushed in and rose to Rufus's ankles, and before he could get the bucket over the edge and started downward it was well to his knees, bubbling faster with every second as the opening widened.
It was indeed time for action, and Wallie himself felt relief when the windlass spun and he heard the splash of the bucket in the bottom.
Rufus's shrieks urged haste as he began to wind laboriously, and with reason, for Rufus was heavy and though Wallie put forth all his strength it was no easy task single-handed, and Rufus rose so slowly that the water gained rapidly.
It became a race between Wallie and the subterranean stream that had been tapped, and he was panting and all but exhausted when Rufus rose to the surface. As he stepped from the bucket the water reached the top, poured over the edge, and rushed down the "draw" to Skull Creek.