Grasping the new line Alan prepared to lower it to Buck. He had quickly doubled it for added strength and was looping it to drop over the nervy reporter’s head and arms when the Flyer’s first dip was felt. With the first sensation of it Alan was at the tube.
“Stop! stop!” he yelled, “or they’ll both be lost.”
When the bow of the car dropped, both the crane and the ladder swung forward violently. The metal to which Ned was clinging in apparent desperate pain, dropped far below his would be rescuer and both Ned and Buck grasped their fragile supports anew.
“Don’t!” shouted Buck. “Don’t! Keep her up. I’ll get him. Don’t do that.”
For the first time Ned spoke. Far forward and low beneath the car, he looked up and caught Alan’s eye. First, he shook his head while he seemed almost to groan with pain.
“Even keel—” he began and then stopped. Alan saw him, gripping his steel supports, vainly attempt to raise his body. One of his legs was free. The other was between the narrowing arms of the V. It was caught as if in a vise. While this had saved the victim from instant death, every dart or movement of the flying car wedged Ned’s leg tighter. With Buck’s words in his ears, and the sight of Ned’s predicament before him Alan sprang to the tube once more.
“Stop her and hold her!” he called, his voice husky with a return of sickening apprehension. “Level and steady!”
Bob now had the looped line which he extended in vain for Buck’s use. The reporter on the ladder neither looked above nor gave attention to the rope that might safeguard his position. The swaying crane and ladder had lessened their sweeping flights and Buck had gripped his coil anew.
“Here she comes!” he shouted suddenly. “Look out!”
With the words he cast the loops of the line toward the still moving crane and Ned. The latter’s left arm shot toward the circling line but the rope fell short. At the same instant Roy in the pilot room shifted his planes; the car came on a level keel and the crane and the ladder again swept forward in a nauseating sweep. Alan was desperate. Speechless and ashy white he pushed his feet through the trap as if to join Buck on the dizzily bobbing ladder rungs.