Word: windlass
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Dates: during 1883-1883
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...Colney, opposed it, but the others were so near shooting him that he came round in no time. So she is going down the mine to-morrow, - and, by the way, you had better go down at the same time. We've got nothing as yet but a hand-windlass, with a big bucket on the end of a rope, so that it's like going down a magnified well; but if Elsie can do it, I guess...
...Travers took us half a mile out of the town, to the Company's mine, on a bare hill-side dotted with groups of men working around their shafts. Two of the "Company" were at work down below, and two were turning the cranks of the rough wooden windlass. They were shaggy, powerful, good-natured fellows, who shook me warmly by the hand when they learned that I was an old friend of their "pard's," and treated Elsie as if she were a goddess just stepped down from the clouds...
They scraped the dirt out of the ore-bucket, lined it with coats, and fastened Elsie in. Then they swung the bucket out under the windlass, and after she had assured them that she was not a bit frightened, they let her slowly down into the black shaft, then two hundred feet deep...