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four hours a day in three eight-hour shifts with two reliefs to each shift
alternating half-hourly. Two men with electric drills driven from the dynamos
aboard the Toreador drilled two holes four feet apart in the face of the cliff and in
the same horizontal planes. The holes slanted slightly downward. Into these
holes the iron rods brought as a part of our equipment and for just this purpose
were inserted, extending about a foot beyond the face of the rock, across these
two rods a plank was laid, and then the next shift, mounting to the new level,
bored two more holes five feet above the new platform, and so on.
During the nights the searchlights from the Toreador were kept playing upon the
cliff at the point where the drills were working, and at the rate of ten feet an hour
the summit was reached upon the fifth day. Ropes were lowered, blocks lashed to
trees at the top, and crude elevators rigged, so that by the night of the fifth day
the entire party, with the exception of the few men needed to man the Toreador,
were within Caspak with an abundance of arms, ammunition and equipment.
From then on, they fought their way north in search of me, after a vain and
perilous effort to enter the hideous reptile-infested country to the south. Owing
to the number of guns among them, they had not lost a man; but their path was
strewn with the dead creatures they had been forced to slay to win their way to
the north end of the island, where they had found Bowen and his bride among
the Galus of Jor.
The reunion between Bowen and Nobs was marked by a frantic display upon
Nobs' part, which almost stripped Bowen of the scanty attire that the Galu
custom had vouchsafed him. When we arrived at the Galu city, Lys La Rue was
waiting to welcome us. She was Mrs. Tyler now, as the master of the Toreador
had married them the very day that the search-party had found them, though
neither Lys nor Bowen would admit that any civil or religious ceremony could
have rendered more sacred the bonds with which God had united them.
Neither Bowen nor the party from the Toreador had seen any sign of Bradley and
his party. They had been so long lost now that any hopes for them must be
definitely abandoned. The Galus had heard rumors of them, as had the Western
Kro-lu and Band-lu; but none had seen aught of them since they had left Fort
Dinosaur months since.
We rested in Jor's village for a fortnight while we prepared for the southward
journey to the point where the Toreador was to lie off shore in wait for us. During
these two weeks Chal-az came up from the Krolu country, now a full-fledged
Galu. He told us that the remnants of Al-tan's party had been slain when they
attempted to re-enter Kro-lu. Chal-az had been made chief, and when he rose,
had left the tribe under a new leader whom all respected.
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