“Kindale is surely not finding it a difficult undertaking,” said the Major. “Your turn next, lad.”
“Yes, sir; I’m ready,” answered Willie, with a little gulp.
A stentorian hail from the engineer reached his ears:
“It’s all right, Major. I’m not all the way down, but I’ll wait here for the boy.”
Major Carroll assisted Willie over the side, and kept a firm grip on him until he had secured a footing on the ladder.
Away from the solid support of the car, and for the first time entirely dependent upon his own efforts, Mr. Beaumont’s ward found that the surroundings had assumed an even more wild and forbidding aspect. One glance at the snow-covered heights above, and another through an opening in the trees, which showed a hazy patch far below, made his knees almost tremble. Had he suddenly found himself on the weather-vane of a cathedral spire his sensations might have been much the same as he experienced now.
Then thoughts of Tom Clifton, and what Tom Clifton might say, if he could see him perched so ridiculously high in the air, flashed into his mind. They did him more good than almost anything else could have done.
“I’ll just make old Dr. Thomas Cliffy open his eyes,” he decided. “He’ll think I’m a bird, all right. I’d like to be a bird for about five minutes.”
As he started to lower himself from rung to rung, the ladder began to sway, while gusts of wind blew against him with a force that made his heart flutter.
Down—down he went, pushing obstructing branches out of his way. They became thicker and thicker, forming an arching screen overhead through which the big gas-bag appeared as a mere, formless patch of dark.