The Spider’s reply was a guttural mutter.
“All the same, you promise!” Johnny insisted.
“Have it your way,” Spider mumbled. “But just you watch this flashlight. I’ll fasten it to my belt, behind. It will be shining straight down. Guess you’ll be able to see it all the way up. It’s pretty bright. When you see it up there at the top you’ll know I’m there.
“And—when you see a white flash you’ll know I’ve got the picture. Always carry a flash-bulb and a little camera, I do. Get some great pictures in all sorts of places.”
“Yes,” Johnny grumbled, “and some time you’ll get your head blown off in the bargain!”
“Oh, yeah?” Spider laughed a crackly sort of laugh.
The elevator to the Sky Ride tower might or might not have been working. The two boys had no way to tell. The door to the place was locked and bolted, apparently from within.
“Just as well pleased,” Spider chuckled. “Always have wanted to climb that thing since I saw the first two sections sticking up out of the snow in 1933—so here goes!” He was away up the steel frame, like a monkey.
It was with a feeling akin to awe that Johnny saw that small, wavering spot of yellow light mount up, up, up toward the spot where some bright star lay hidden behind a cloud.
“He’ll never climb so high,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t have let him try. And yet—” There was a mystery to be solved, and mysteries at times are to be solved only by deeds of daring. So he watched the light at Spider’s back mount and mount until it was but a tiny speck of yellow light that, winking and blinking, rose ever higher and higher.