“He’s all right,” yelled Bob in answer. “He’s on the crane. We’ll have him in a minute.”
“Send Roy here,” came back instantly. “Quick!”
His pallid face yet stamped with fear, Roy understood. He was the only one to take Alan’s place. Without even a look below he rushed into the store room and up the ladder. Almost before he grasped the pilot wheel Alan had dropped to the deck below. But he was not quicker than Bob and Buck. The latter’s feet were already through the trapdoor and on the ladder rungs. From its hook on the port gallery just outside the engine room door, Bob had caught up one of the buoy life lines. It was fragile looking but tested to 750 pounds. Bob did not yet fully understand the situation but he had acted instantly on Buck’s orders.
“The line!” came again from the young Kentuckian, one of whose hands could now alone be seen. As Buck’s fingers grasped the rope Alan tumbled into the room.
“He’s on the crane,” panted Bob.
“Come back, let me down there,” shouted Alan dropping over the trap.
“Pay out that line,” was Buck’s only answer. “Gimme me more of it.”
“Don’t try that,” yelled Alan anew as he tried to grasp Buck’s swaying body, “I’ll do it. Come up!”
If the tense Buck heard these injunctions he gave no sign of obeying. The tenderfoot who, five minutes before, had been writhing in the miseries of “sky sickness,” was now clinging to the swinging ladder with his feet and his left arm. With death defying recklessness he did not even grasp the rung of the ladder with his hand. His left arm thrust between two rungs, he was using his left hand and his free right hand to draw the life line through the trap and coil it in a loop. Then, catching the circles of the line in his right hand, he grasped a ladder rung with his left and balanced his body to cast the coiled rope.
“Stop! Stop!” called Alan again. “Wait till we get a rope around you.”