“Sure he’s alive,” Tim murmured. “I saw his arm move.”
“He—he’s almost down now,” muttered his companion. “There now, he—” Breaking short off the speaker dashed for the far side of the roof.
Just as the daring aviator’s feet touched the roof a sudden, violent gust of wind caught his parachute and sent it skyward. Lifting him off his feet, it carried him forward at a rapid rate. Then, as if to complete its work of destruction, over empty space the parachute collapsed.
The parachutist found himself balanced on the parapet, leaning back with all his might, but apparently doomed to crash to the earth a hundred feet below. Then, of a sudden, a voice said:
“Here, young man, where y’ think y’re goin’?”
A pair of husky arms were wrapped about him and he was dragged to safety. His savior was Tim’s powerful companion.
“Why, you’re little more than a boy!” The big man exclaimed after peering into the rescued one’s face.
“I’m more than that,” the youth replied huskily. “If I were to tell you who I really am you might be a little surprised. But I’m not telling.”
“Whoever you are,” said Tim with a wave of his strong arms, “you’re a darling of the gods. What you done tonight no other man could do an’ live.”
“What’s more,” Tim’s partner added, “you’ve saved the life of many a woman an’ child. There was two tons of bombs in that big ship an’ she was ’angin’ over blocks an’ blocks of tenements. It was early. The first alarm had ’ardly sounded. They don’t get to the subway that quick, the women an’ the children, they don’t.”