CHAPTER III
A DARING FEAT
Will Bertram satisfied himself on two points before he relaxed the rapid pace with which he had left the deck of the Golden Moose.
The first was to learn that Captain Morris was not following him, and the next was that Tom Dalton had got out of sight.
“I don’t know whether I have done right or wrong in incurring Captain Morris’ enmity,” he soliloquized, “but I couldn’t stand it to see him abuse poor Tom, and I wouldn’t let him whip me. I wonder what father will say when I tell him what has occurred.”
This thought worried Will considerably, and, revolving the episodes of the day over and over in his mind, he found himself wandering considerably from a straight course homewards.
An exciting divertisement for the time being took his thoughts into new channels. As he reached the public square he observed quite a throng of people gathered around a large structure just in course of completion, and went towards them to learn the cause of the curiosity and excitement their actions manifested.
A moment’s lingering on the outskirts of the throng gave Will an intelligent hint as to their interest in the spot.
“It’s up yonder,” a man said, pointing up at the high spire which crowned the summit of the tower of the structure.
It was just getting towards dusk, but as Will looked upwards he could make out a white fluttering object. It seemed to be impaled upon the pointed vane of the spire, and Will, straining his vision, made out that it resembled a large ocean bird.
“What is it?” he asked.
“A white osprey.”
“How did it get there?”
“Flew against the point, I guess,” replied the man.
The dying daylight gleaming down the valley showed the bird making frantic efforts to release itself.
Its strange, weird cries could be faintly heard from where Will stood.
The crowd kept increasing every moment, and among them, Will noticed a strange, well-dressed, gentlemanly-looking person who seemed very much interested in the aerial scene above.
“It’s a fine specimen of a bird,” he remarked. “Is there not some way of releasing it from its plight?”
“Yes, climb up and catch it,” responded a pert young man.
The stranger was not discomfited at the jeering proposition.
He calmly took out his pocketbook and drew from it a ten-dollar bill.
“Why not?” he asked complacently. “Suppose you try, since you suggest it. I will willingly give that money for the bird.”
The crowd laughed. It became the young man’s turn to look embarrassed.
“You ain’t in earnest,” he said.
“But I am.”
“Well, I guess no one in this crowd cares to risk his neck, even for ten dollars.”
“Steeple Jack would,” broke in a boy.
“Where is he?” asked the stranger.
“Oh, he’s left town after fixing the spire.”
Will Bertram, an interested listener to all that had been said, stepped forward impulsively.
His heart beat more quickly as he thought of how much good the money might do his family, yet he trembled at his own boldness, as he asked:
“Is the offer open to anybody, sir?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll earn it. I’ll get the bird for you.”
“Here, come back! I don’t want a reckless boy to risk his life,” began the stranger, alarmed at the result of his careless offer.
But Will was gone, and a moment later after disappearing in the basement, appeared on the ledge of the third story of the building, waving his hand to the people below.
A new element of excitement was awakened by his rashness. When he appeared in view again at the base of the tower an apprehensive hush fell over the throng.
He glanced down once at the upturned faces and then looked upwards. But that he did not care to expose himself to ridicule and the charge of cowardice he would have returned below.
He remembered how he had seen the Steeple Jack nimbly climb the tower and by means of a rope work himself slowly round and round the tiled ornamental steeple.
Here and there in it were small holes bored, the only means of sustaining the weight of his body.
At that dizzy height, a misstep or a slip of the hand meant certain death.
Will Bertram summoned all his courage, gained the base of the steeple, and tying the rope he had secured on a floor below around the steeple, rested his back against it and began pulling himself sideways and upwards along the smooth, even surface of the steeple.
The throng below had lost a casual, idle curiosity in the feat of daring now. Interest had succeeded, and then, as they saw that speck of diminishing humanity slowly, laboriously round the point of blackness against the darkening sky, a shuddering apprehension filled the strongest heart.
The clinging form would appear and disappear. It reached the narrowing summit of the steeple, and a hand clasped firmly the lower gilded bar of the spire.
There was a moment of awful suspense, and eyes strained and wearied by piercing the enveloping gloom of dusk, grew dimmer.
For a moment the figure rested at the base of the spire, then it was drawn a foot or two higher.
Darkness in earnest had come down over the earth, but one last glint of the dying sunlight far in the fading west illumined the gilded spire.
It showed the huddled form of the boy, his hand extended towards the vane. That hand clasped the bird, released it, and then swinging clear of the spire, dropped it flutteringly downward.
A faint cheer tinged with dread went up from the suspenseful throng. The daylight faded utterly—night came down over all the impressive scene, and only very dimly visible was the form of Will Bertram, returning to earth by the way he had left it.
At last, tower, steeple, and boy were a black blur against the darkened sky. A timid watcher shrieked outright as some object from above went whirling past him.
“What is it?” inquired a dozen eager voices.
“The rope! he has reached the base of the tower! he is safe!”
The stranger who had offered the money had grown very pale. His hat, dropped off in the excitement and suspense for the boy, was disregarded.
He turned to the side of the building and an exclamation of delight parted his lips as past a ledge of masonry a form came down a rope.
The rope was not long enough to reach the ground.
“Drop!” he cried, stretching out his arms.
One minute later, the center of a surging, excited throng, Will Bertram had regained terra firma in safety.
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