Uncomprehendingly, he watched the figures outside bang down the iron coverings over the shaft, and wheel the clanking ore car onto the tracks beneath the suspended bucket. The men seemed to Loring to be possessed of magical deftness as they unshackled the full bucket, and clamped the swinging hook through the bar of the empty one. The loaded ore car bumped groaningly off on its journey down to the cribs, the iron coverings opened, and a voice called: “Lower!”
At times Stephen’s head cleared somewhat, and he noticed every detail in the hoist shed. He stared at the way the shadows from the one electric light fell on the rough boards. The water jug in the corner, the disordered tool box, the little pile of oily waste by the boiler, all photographed themselves on his eye. He noticed the great pile of beams in the back of the shed, the timbering for the new shaft, lettered with huge blue stencils, and watched with interest the flare in the furnace when the Mexican stoker threw fresh armfuls of mesquite wood upon the fire.
Then again all was whirl, and he was obliged to grip his stool to keep from falling. His hand clung to the control lever with damp, clinging pressure.
Every few minutes the gong would sound, telling that another load of ore was waiting to be raised. Once he ran the “skip” so high above the shaft, that it crashed into the framework. It seemed to be some one entirely disconnected with himself who fumbled with the winch, and lowered the bucket again, until the shrill: “O. K.! ’Sta ’ueno!” from the darkness outside told of the proper level. Between the striking of the bells, Stephen puzzled over the meaning of the white painted bands on the cable, which should have told him at what level the bucket was.
The time seemed to drag endlessly. Still the buckets continued to come. Just outside the door of the shed he could see the peg board that indicated the tally of buckets raised. He swore at it bitterly. “Why can’t the checker put in two pegs at a time, until the board is full, and the shift finished?” he thought.
Whenever the winch was in motion, the grating roar of the cable winding in or out seemed to be inside his own head. Steadily he became more and more bewildered. His will was rapidly losing the desperate fight for control. Once he fell off his stool.
There was a slight delay in the work. The next bucket was slow in being signaled.
“What lazy men—what lazy men!” he murmured.
Then clear and sharp rang the signal: “Clang—Clang—Clang——Clang!” Loring was too dazed to remember that three bells before the one to hoist was the signal for “man on the bucket.” The one bell telling to raise, or two to lower, had conveyed their meaning automatically to him. The sudden change was incomprehensible.