“Of course you can’t!” answered Carl.
“I could if I had a rope!” insisted Jimmie.
“There’s a rope in the box under your seat,” Carl replied, “but there’s no need of your attempting suicide!”
“Now, look here!” Jimmie argued, speaking very slowly and shouting to the full capacity of his lungs in order to make his chum hear his words, “if you can hold this machine steadily above the Ann, without varying half an inch in her pace, I can drop past the upper plane of the lower machine, light on the framework, and climb into that seat.”
“No one ever heard of such a thing being done!” declared Carl.
Before the words were out of Carl’s mouth, Jimmie had the rope in his hands. He fastened it securely to the framework of the Louise and dropped one end down.
“Now,” he called to Carl, “unless you hold the Louise exactly right, you’ll get the rope tangled in the Ann’s propeller, and then it will be all up with all of us!”
The boy’s face was pale as death as, motioning Carl to shift his weight as much as possible so as to prevent the Louise swaying when he changed his position, the boy took hold of the rope and lowered himself.
In a second he felt his body brushing against the framework of the Ann’s top wing. Then the rope began twisting and untwisting under his weight, and he whirled round and round like a top, until he became possessed by a feeling of dizziness.
He could see the ground, red with firelight, where the tents were and nothing else. He sensed that both machines were passing over the camp. At last, after what seemed to him an eternity, the twisting rope brought him face to the vacant seat and to the disabled aviator, whose hands were limply touching the levers.