Slowly, as if his body weighed hundreds of pounds, Buck’s foot arose to the next rung. Hampered by the precious line, which he must not lose, he drew himself up a step. Again and again he repeated the effort—the perspiration standing on his forehead—until, at last, his trembling fingers got the rope to Alan’s low reaching hand.
“Hadn’t I better stay here and guide the arm?” almost groaned Buck.
Both boys above saw the impossibility of this. Stewart had done his work. They knew he could do no more.
“Come on,” urged Bob hoarsely. “You’re doin’ fine. Easy now. We need you up here!”
Twice more and the weak Buck was within reach of the boys in the cabin. Together they caught his shoulders and almost lifted him into the cabin.
“Right,” gasped Buck, “we’re all needed—here. I—” and the exhausted reporter rolled over on the floor. The trap-opening clear of Buck’s form Alan looked below once more. Ned, his eyes yet closed, was waiting for the effort that meant life or death to him.
“You’re all right, old man,” called Alan reassuringly. “Keep your nerve and you’ll be with us in a second. Hold tight. All ready.”
“Can we do it?” whispered Bob as the two boys braced themselves for the strain that was to draw the crane back in place.
“We’ve got to do it,” was Alan’s reply. “And the line mustn’t give an inch. I’ll draw in and you take a turn each time around that deck post—” pointing to a metal upright about three feet astern of the opening. “All ready!”
With one foot against the inside edge of the trap door aperture and the other beneath him, Alan and Bob, the latter with a single turn of the line about the deck post, and his feet against it, both lay back on the first heave of the cable that meant so much to all of them. While Alan held the first hitch steadily for Bob to take up slack, a form crowded close behind him.