He cast about for some means of escape. A few bits of junk lay in the passageway. They were useless. But just outside the door he saw a worn and rusted half-inch cable. Some construction boss had cast it aside as no longer trustworthy; but even if it were nine-tenths rusted through, the steel would still hold the weight of a man.

Martley grabbed the end and pulled. The cable extended through somewhere beyond the wall of water. Martley dragged it in, hoping that the other end was stuck firmly. But it yielded; he pulled the loose end through the water, and found himself with thirty feet of cable.

“I can’t stay here; I’m too busy,” he thought again.

Martley looped one end of the cable around upon itself. He pounded it with a stone for a hammer. The rusty projecting ends of wire tore at his hands, but he fabricated a loop about three feet in diameter.

Just outside the doorway he dug his heels in for a firm footing. He was so close to the falling water that he could reach it with his finger-tips. Like a cowboy on foot making ready to rope his pony, he stood with the awkward steel loop in his right hand. He cast it at the wall of water.

It struck flatways, and was flung back. He corrected his aim. This time it disappeared neatly through the water. He pulled hopefully, but the loop came back to him without much resistance. He gathered it to his hand, and stood for a moment judging distance and direction.

In eleven years he had come to know every detail about his dam. He knew that just beyond the water stood three rocks close together. If he could cast the looped cable among them it might stick.

The third attempt did not pierce the water. The fourth went through, seemed to stick, and then yielded as he pulled a little harder. He tried again and again—now with no luck at all, now with enough hint of success to keep him trying.

He was a methodical man and kept his count. The eleventh and fourteenth throws stuck momentarily. By now he knew exactly where the rocks must be. But the fifteenth try was a complete miss; his arm was tired.

On the sixteenth throw he was careful. He pulled in; the cable ran freely for a foot and then stuck with a sudden jam. He was sure he had it! He pulled hard; he rested a moment, and then strained with his full weight. The cable was solid.

There was, of course, a very good chance that, when he swung through an arc of more than a right angle, he would slip the loop off whatever projection held it. “I can’t stay here all day,” he thought.