A momentary impulse, almost of cowardice, swept over him.

Then he steeled himself, and went on and up.

That staff must be more than a mile high, it now seemed to the boy, hanging there in momentary danger of his life.

Dave, standing below, looking up, knew far more torment.

Watching Dick, Darrin began to feel wholly responsible for the whole awful predicament of his chum.

“I urged him on to it,” thought Dave, with a rush of horror that his own peril could not have brought to him.  “Oh, I hope the splendid old fellow does make this stunt safely!”

It seemed as though thousands were packed in the street below, every face upturned.  The breath of the multitude came short and sharp.  Two women and a girl fainted from the strain.

In a window in the building across the street a photographer poised his camera.  Behind the shutter was a long-angled lens, fitted for taking pictures at a distance.

Just as Dick Prescott’s arms were within two feet of the weather vane the photographer exposed his plate.

Dick, in the meantime, was moving in a sort of dumb way now.  The keenness of his senses had left him.  He moved mechanically; he knew what he was after, and he kept on.  Yet he seemed largely to have lost the power to realize the danger of his position.

A-a-ah!  He was up there now, holding to the weathervane!  His legs curled doggedly around the flagstaff.  He had need now to use all the strength in his legs, for he must use one hand to disentangle the black scarf, which lay twisted about the vane just over his head.  But it was the right scarf.  The glint and dazzle of the diamonds was in his eyes.

How the extreme end of that flag pole quivered.  It seemed to the boy as though the pole must bend and snap, what with the pressure of the heavy wind and the weight of his body!

Slowly, laboriously, mechanically, like one in a trance, Dick employed his left hand in patiently disentangling the black web from the trap in which it had been caught.

At last the scarf was free.  Most cautiously Dick lowered his left hand, tucking the jeweled fabric carefully into the inner pocket of his coat.

“I—–­I—–­guess—–­it safe—–­in there,” he muttered, hardly realizing that he was saying any thing.

Dave, from below, had looked on, fascinated.  Now that he saw the major part of the daring feat accomplished, Darrin did not make the mistake of shouting any advice to his comrade.  He knew that any sudden shout might attract Prescott’s attention in a way to cause him to lose his head.

Slowly—–­oh, so slowly!  Dick came down.  It seemed as though, at last, he understood his danger to the full and was afraid.  The truth was, Prescott realized that, with all the vibrating of the staff in the wind, his muscular power was being sapped out of him.

Dave Darrin was down again, crouching on top of the spire, when Dick reached him.