Joe carefully measured the distance with his eye, wound up, and pitched the ball with all his strength toward the small opening high in the wall. It struck within a few inches of the window, but bounded off and bounced down into the street. Joe picked it up, untangled the twine, and tried again. This time the ball went right through the center of the open window. The throw must have been all of a hundred feet from the sidewalk to the window, and in addition the ball was weighted with the trailing twine. It is doubtful if any other pitcher in the big leagues could have equaled the wonderful throw. Joe, however, never gave the matter a thought. Jim had one end of the twine, and Joe was elated that his scheme had been successful so far.
He glanced cautiously about, but as far as he could tell his actions had not attracted any attention. Half way up the block a few people were going in and out of the shabby tenement houses, but they took no notice of him. However, he judged it wise to wait a few minutes before proceeding farther, and so sat down on his coil of rope and whittled nonchalantly at a sliver of wood. The thin string hanging down the front of the old warehouse would never be noticed from the street, and Joe felt reasonably secure so far.
After about ten minutes of waiting there came a time when the street was again almost deserted, and Joe was not slow in taking advantage of this. Crossing swiftly over, he attached the end of the one-inch hemp line to the twine, and gave a gentle pull to let Jim know that everything was all right.
The latter had grasped Joe’s idea as soon as the baseball with the twine attached came bounding into the room. Now, when he felt the tug on the cord, he pulled the rope up hand over hand, and soon had the end in the room. There were several big hooks in the room, and he quickly fastened the cord to one of these. This done, he prepared to essay the perilous descent.
[CHAPTER XXVI]
SCATTERING THE RASCALS
It required nerve to climb out on the narrow window sill and trust his life to that swaying rope, but Jim was plentifully equipped with that article, and he hesitated not a second. He twisted the rope several times about one leg, so as to take some of the strain off his arms, and then started sliding slowly down.
Down on the sidewalk, Joe held the lower end of the rope, to prevent its swinging, and gazed anxiously up at his friend. One false move or a moment of dizziness, and Jim would be dashed to death on the paving.