“Not ex-actly,” protested the hero a little breathlessly. “Stunt-flying a thousand feet up would—would be a three-legged race on a Sunday School picnic, compared to that ledge there—a girl hanging over—mean proposition,” behind his teeth.
“Ugh!” Pemrose shuddered. “Why—why did you go wandering off by yourself like that?” She clasped her girl chum tighter.
“Wander-ing—off!” But, with that, Una sat up; and now it seemed as if the recent shock was but the unsealing of a greater terror behind it, in her eyes.
“Did you hear-r it?” she gasped, pushing herself away and staring at Pem. “Now—now you heard it for yourself,” in feverish triumph. “That strange hum; that pip-ing sound. ’Twas—’twas the same that I heard in the wood, at home. And you wouldn’t believe me! I wanted to find out where it—came—from. But it isn’t earthly,” in a low whimper. “I think it’s trying—trying to get—hold—”
“Not earthly!” hooted Pemrose. “I could make it.”
“I c-can’t believe you,” hiccoughed the girl, who had been hypnotized into following it.
“Make it a dare—will you?” challenged the other—although, perhaps, with a tiny “niggling” doubt in her blue eyes. “What will you bet me that Treff and I together can’t ‘pull off that stunt’?”
That night a great scientist’s daughter talked long with her father by radio, handling her message as cleverly as she did before, for the edification and envy of her companions.
It was a pact between them that on certain mornings and evenings—after dark, in the latter case—they should try to tune in on a conversation with each other.