steeled herself for her task, she thrust her tools into her pockets, held the loose end of the wire in her teeth and began to climb. Clutching with her hands and pushing with her feet, she crept upward. She made slow progress. Now the ridge seemed not so far away. She dared not look back or down.

She was halfway up, when, with startling suddenness, the moon came from behind a cloud.

“Gosh!” she exclaimed, flattening herself against the shingles. She went so flat that she started slowly to slide. After digging in with toes and fingers she managed to hold her ground. And then the moon hid its face.

One more desperate struggle and she found herself sitting triumphantly astride the ridge.

“Now,” she breathed, “all I have to do is to pull the wire tight, attach it to the aerial and then slide down.”

Yes, that was all there was to it, just to slide down.

With fingers that trembled slightly she drew the gray wire tight against the roof, cut it at the right place and then, with the skill of a lineman, wound it tight, round and round the original wire leading to the aerial.

She had twisted herself back to a place astride the roof when again the moon showed its face.

At the same instant she thought she heard someone far below let out a low whistle. She couldn’t let herself be seen sitting there, just couldn’t. That might mean catastrophe.

Then it happened. In attempting to throw herself flat, she overdid the matter. Missing a grip on the ridge, she heard her flashlight go rolling down the roof. And, in quite an involuntary manner, she came gliding, clawing and kicking after it.

Recalling the tree and at the same time realizing that she was powerless to check her slow glide, she managed somehow to swing half about. When she left the roof, she rolled off, felt the brush of a leafy branch, struck out desperately with her hands, gripped a branch, clung there and found herself at last dangling in mid-air. Or was she two-thirds of the way down? There was no way of knowing.

Clinging desperately to the cracking branch, she dared not call for help. What was to be done? Feeling a larger branch against her back, she tried to turn about. She had made half the swing just as her slender branch gave an ominous crack.

At the same time a voice from below said: 

 Prev. P 21/121 next