From the edge of a
cliff just in front of this hut, there swung a long cable, which reached
almost to the base of the shore beneath us; and, even as we looked, we
saw what seemed a tiny bucket go swinging slowly down that strange
hypotenuse. We watched it till we saw it get to the end of its journey in
the valley beneath, not far from the great mill to which we were bound.
"How mysterious!" said Mrs. Falchion. "What does it mean? I never saw
anything like that before. What a wonderful thing!"
Roscoe explained. "Up there in that hut," he said, "there lives a man
called Phil Boldrick. He is a unique fellow, with a strange history. He
has been miner, sailor, woodsman, river-driver, trapper,
salmon-fisher;--expert at the duties of each of these, persistent at
none. He has a taste for the ingenious and the unusual. For a time he
worked in Mr. Devlin's mill. It was too tame for him. He conceived the
idea of supplying the valley with certain necessaries, by intercepting
the mule trains as they passed across the hills, and getting them down to
Viking by means of that cable. The valley laughed at him; men said it was
impossible.
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