peg-leg

"Don't forget to bring the gun back tomorrow morning," Peg-leg said, peg-legging it back into the morgue.

With the wire line, except at great depths, the nearest parallel to the lift of a manila cable in a dry hole is "peg-legging" (alternate hitting and missing of the tools). Tools will peg-leg with the wire line, but should not be permitted to do so in a dry hole under ordinary conditions.