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With a yell of sheer terror which came quicker than even his sense of pain, the man leaped back, dropping as he did so the rope which held back the iron door. I jumped for it, but was too late, for the cord ran like lightning through the pulley-block, and the heavy mass fell forward from its own weight. As the door closed I caught a glimpse of our poor companion's face.

Rusted in their sockets, they resisted him but he spied a pulley-block within reach and used it as a hammer. All this was a matter of seconds only. The pirates grouped amidships had been waiting for Ned Rackham's word from aft and they were muddled by this sudden shift of action. The other sentries stared in foolish astonishment. The brief delay was enough to let Jack Cockrell free the hatch.

"Come here!" shouted John to Charlie, and he led the boy around to a coil of rope, one end of which was attached to the line going through the water. "See there, Bub! There is a block, what they call a single pulley-block, and this stouter rope is doubled through it. It will soon go to the wreck."

At the word, "Ready!" a hauling chain, passing through an anchored pulley-block far up the grade and back to the freed engine of the construction train, was made fast to the forward end of the bolted section; a second word of command, and the engine backed swiftly, dragging the prepared section off over the rollers of the flat-cars and into place on the ties.

They could have told you that the great gaudy vans were loaded on a train of flat cars, and that a single horse working a rope and pulley-block trundled the vans from the train nearly as fast as their respective teamsters could hitch horses to them and drive away. These boys knew that the stake and chain wagon was always the first to leave the train.