"Soup!" he ordered. "Break out the nitroglycerine, Smithy. Get that Swede, Hanson, on the job; he's a shooter. He knows his stuff. We'll blow open the bottom end of our shaft so it'll never go shut!"
anson knew his stuff and did it. But he met Rawson's inquiring eyes with a puzzled shake of his head when the open mouth of the twenty-inch bore gave faint echo of the deep explosion and followed after a time with only a feeble puff of air.
"Like a cannon, she should have gone," Hanson stated. "And she yoost go phht!"
"It's open down below," said Rawson briefly. "This is a different kind of a well from the kind you've been shooting."
To the waiting Riley he said: "Hook a bailer onto that cable and send it down. See what you can tell about the hole."
Again ten miles of cable hissed smoothly down the gaping throat. Then it slowed.
"Fifty-two-seven," said Riley, "and she's open. Seven twenty-five! Seven fifty, and we're on bottom!"
"Up," Rawson ordered, "if there's anything left of the bailer. It's probably melted into scrap."