United States or Guam ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The overhead light dimmed briefly when the pump load was thrown on and then the slip-slap sound of the pump filled the shed. They watched and listened for a couple of minutes. Assured that the pump was working satisfactorily, they left the wrecked pumphouse. Johnny was carrying the gasoline can of milk. "Good thing you set this off to one side where it didn't get hit and go off," he said.
"England has declared war on Germany!" We were working on a pumphouse, on the Columbia River, at Trail, British Columbia, when these words were shouted at us from the door by the boss carpenter, who had come down from the smelter to tell us that the news had just come over the wire. Every one stopped work, and for a full minute not a word was spoken.
"Well, I just filled the kicker with it by accident, and man, you orter hear that engine run," Barney exclaimed. "Come see." Johnny swung his legs through the window and dropped lightly to the yard. The two men were halfway across the yard from the pumphouse when a loud explosion ripped the building. Parts of the pump engine flew through the thin walls like shrapnel.
He tossed the golden shell to one side and turned back to his glass work. Barney left for the pumphouse. Inside the pumphouse, Barney opened the gasoline engine tank and poked a stick down to test the fuel level. The stick came out almost dry. With another string of mutterings, he limped across the yard to the tractor shed for a gas can.
Back in the pumphouse, he poured the engine tank full, set the gas can aside and then, after priming the carburetor, yanked on the starter pull rope. The engine caught with a spluttering roar and began racing madly. Barney lunged for the throttle and cut it back to idle, but even then, the engine was running at near full speed.
They eyed the ruins of the gasoline engine. "Holy cow," Johnny exclaimed, "that stuff blew the engine right apart." He gazed up at the holes in the pumphouse roof. "Blew the cylinders and head right out the roof. Holy cow!" Barney was pawing at the pump and electric motor. "Didn't seem to hurt the pump none.
Concrete-mixing took more water the next day, and by noon the whole village population, down to the smallest child, was massed at the pumphouse, enthralled. Mom was snared by the sound like any of the rest; only Sonny was unaffected. Lillian and Ayesha compared recordings of the voices of the team with the pump-sound; in Gofredo's they found an identical frequency-pattern.
A long minute then he left the pumphouse, made a few tracks in the snow around the entrance, and walked swiftly down the road. Fifteen minutes later, from a hiding place at the side of the Clear Creek bridge, he saw the lights of the ambulance as it swerved to the pumphouse. Out came the stretcher. The attendants went in search of the injured man.
Some way, by shifting the big frame of his unconscious partner now and then, Fairchild made the trip to the main road and veered toward the pumphouse of the Diamond J. mine, running as it often did without attendance while the engineer made a trip with the electric motor into the hill. Cautiously he peered through the windows. No one was there. Beyond lay warmth and comfort and a telephone.
Fairchild went within and placed Harry on the floor. Then he reached for the 'phone and called the hospital. "Hello!" he announced in a husky, disguised voice. "This is Jeb Gresham of Georgeville. I 've just found a man lying by the side of the Diamond J. pumphouse, unconscious, with a big cut in his head. I 've brought him inside. You 'll find him there; I 've got to go on.
Word Of The Day