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The boys, as well as Mr. Post and the workmen, had moved a safe distance away. The final arrangements were made, and then all was in readiness for dropping the "go-devil," as it is termed. Mr. Baker gave a last look around to see that all were far enough back. Then, with a wave of his hand he stooped over the hole. The next instant he was running like a deer. "He's dropped it!" exclaimed Mr. Post.
He saw that steam was up in the boiler which operated the "go-devil," although the contrivance itself was stationary. It was upon this that he centered his attention, consulting his watch nervously. At last ten o'clock came, bringing with it a sound which startled the near-by camp into activity. It was a shrill blast from an S. R. & N. locomotive and the grinding of car-wheels.
Perfect silence reigned for what seemed a long time while the go-devil was falling through twelve hundred feet of oil and water; but the time was hardly more than a minute, and then Ralph, who had expected to hear a deafening noise, simply heard a crackling sound, much as if two small fire-crackers had been exploded.
You hear a noise, and in about half a minute you begin to see one, and it begins to rain oil and mud and salt water and rocks and pitchforks and adoptive citizens; and when it clears up the derrick's painted got a coat on that 'll wear in any climate. That's what our honored host meant. Generally get some visiting lady, when there's one round, to drop the Go-devil.
I stopped three of 'em and dug myself in. We went at it hammer and tongs. In the afternoon they put a hole through my whiskers. After awhile they clipped my shoulder. Then I got a bullet through my arm." He held up his left forearm swathed in a mass of soiled and blood-soaked bandages. And he told of Van Horn's go-devil. "The raid's on," muttered Laramie.
We used a 'go-devil-squib. That's a sort of torpedo, holding about a quart of the glycerine, and it has a firing head of its own. We drop that down the pipe and when it hits on the top cannister it goes off, and sets off the rest of the explosive. But, somehow, it didn't work this time. The charge missed fire, so now we're going to drop down an old fashioned 'go-devil' and see what happens." Mr.
In using them one difficulty was found which has been overcome in an ingenious fashion. Sometimes they become choked by the impurities of the oil and the flow is lessened. Then a "go-devil" is put into them. This is shaped like a cartridge, is about three feet in length, composed of springs and plates of iron and so flexible that it can turn around a corner.
Still Ralph could not fully understand its importance; but he stationed himself by the window, resolved to carry the go-devil and the cartridges any distance, rather than take the chances of being obliged to burden himself with the dangerous oil which the others appeared to regard with so little fear.
Less than ten minutes sufficed for this work, and then each member of the party was out of doors, Ralph with the cartridges over his shoulder and the go-devil under his arm, while the others carried a can of the dangerous liquid in each hand.
In the morning he was hauled out of the trap and bound down on a rough skeleton sled made from a forked limb, very much like the contrivance called by lumbermen a "go-devil." Great difficulty was encountered in securing a team of horses that could be induced to haul the bear.
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