At that a long finger of white light began feeling its way through the blackness that is sky above Lake Michigan on a cloudy night.
Johnny, unable to find the loop in the rope, feeling his strength unequal to a climb hand over hand, felt the muscles of his arms weaken until all seemed lost.
And then, as if some miracle had been done, night turned into day. The powerful light had reached him only for a second, but that was enough. His keen eye had caught the loop in the rope. It was by his knee. A sudden fling and his knee was resting in that loop.
“All—all right now!” he called. “Try to pull me up.”
And at that the gleam of that powerful searchlight returned to rest on the spot of air in which the runaway balloon hung.
“I’ll step over and call the sausage balloon, Ben,” one of the men in the great steel tower said to the other as Beth, at sight of the balloon still drifting high, began breathing more easily. “They’ll have to go to the rescue.”
One more fierce struggle and Johnny tumbled over the side into the balloon’s basket.
“It—it’s put on with steel rings,” he panted.
“It—what is?” Felix stared.
“The cable. What did you think?” Johnny laughed in spite of himself. “That’s what I went over to see about.”