It was fear he was experiencing, honest fear, and he knew that there was a “gone” feeling in the pit of his stomach, and a trembling of the knees which he could not quell.

But he held himself bravely to the task.  The cable was old and worn, sharp pieces of wire projected from it, and his hands were cut and bleeding by the time he took his first rest, and held a shouted conversation with Spillane.  The car was directly beneath him and only a few feet away, so he was able to explain the condition of affairs and his errand.

“Wish I could help you,” Spillane shouted at him as he started on, “but the wife’s gone all to pieces!  Anyway, kid, take care of yourself!  I got myself in this fix, but it’s up to you to get me out!”

“Oh, I’ll do it!” Jerry shouted back.  “Tell Mrs. Spillane that she’ll be ashore now in a jiffy!”

In the midst of pelting rain, which half-blinded him, swinging from side to side like a rapid and erratic pendulum, his torn hands paining him severely and his lungs panting from his exertions and panting from the very air which the wind sometimes blew into his mouth with strangling force, he finally arrived at the empty car.

A single glance showed him that he had not made the dangerous journey in vain.  The front trolley-wheel, loose from long wear, had jumped the cable, and the cable was now jammed tightly between the wheel and the sheave-block.

One thing was clear—­the wheel must be removed from the block.  A second 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.