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The three-quarter-inch cable above us was now sustaining, in addition to its own huge weight, our massive glass ball and the appalling tonnage of this grim blanket of flesh that encircled us. Could it further hold against the strain of lifting that combined tonnage through the press of the water? Almost certainly it could not!
In the South it was called a lariat. The modern rope is a well-made three-quarter-inch hemp rope about thirty feet in length, with a leather or rawhide eye. The cowboy's quirt was a short heavy whip, the stock being of wood or iron covered with braided leather and carrying a lash made of two or three heavy loose thongs. The spur in the old days had a very large rowel with blunt teeth an inch long.
Wardrop found them asleep where they had finished the work, and gave them a day's rest, smiling upon them as a father while he drew chalk-marks about the cracks. They woke to new and more trying labour; for over each one of those cracks a plate of three-quarter-inch boiler-iron was to be worked hot, the rivet-holes being drilled by hand.
For lack of better these were three-quarter-inch bullets which "Dad had given him," while the alley was a full-inch round ball, which belonged to what my host was pleased to call "the little darlint" a hoary blunderbuss over six feet in length.
You also see that it was obviously not made by an ordinary dagger-maker; that, in spite of the Italian word scrawled on it, there is plainly written all over it 'British mechanic. The blade is made from a strip of common three-quarter-inch tool steel; the hilt is turned from an aluminium rod; and there is not a line of engraving on it that could not be produced in a lathe by any engineer's apprentice.
We are both officers of the Engineering Corps, and it is our business to know about such things. "'What makes you think the Screamer won't lift it? I asked. "'Well, says the Colonel, looking aloft, 'her boom ain't big enough, and that Manila rope is too light. I should think it wasn't over three and three-quarter-inch rope.
Stripped to their undershirts, they worked all through the hot prairie evenings in the oil-smelling, greasy engine-room of the local power-house, in front of the dynamos, which kept evilly throwing out green sparks and rumbling the mystic syllable "Om-m-m-m," to greet their modern magic. They hunted for three-quarter-inch willow rods, but discarded them for seasoned ash from the lumber-yard.
Wardrop found them asleep where they had finished the work, and gave them a day's rest, smiling upon them as a father while he drew chalk-marks about the cracks. They woke to new and more trying labour; for over each one of those cracks a plate of three-quarter-inch boiler-iron was to be worked hot, the rivet-holes being drilled by hand.
"Now for the oxy-acetylene blowpipe," cried Kennedy as he advanced toward the steel door. "We'll make short work of this." Almost as he said it, the steel beneath the blowpipe became incandescent. Just to test it, he cut off the head of a three-quarter-inch steel rivet taking about a quarter of a minute to do it.
Just to test it, he cut off the head of a three-quarter-inch steel rivet taking about a quarter of a minute to do it. It was evident, though, that that would not weaken the door appreciably, even if the rivets were all driven through. Still they gave a starting-point for the flame of the high-pressure acetylene torch. It was a brilliant sight.
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