The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-07-19


quietly; please pull it down over the
stoneWork. No, hardly that way. Let
me come up and show you.
A short ladder led up from the scat
fold to the roof Of the clock tower.
The foothold Of planks was held up
by stout ropes wound about the EN-
brasures Of the parapets. unconscious,
shifted the right-hand rope from it's
place, and Gavin's heart 1eaped when
he perceived that in another instant
boards and man and ladder must go
headlong to the stone terrace below.
In truth, the climax came while the !
light words were still upon his lips,
g grl sn weak 1p hana tRs seafoid 0 SWUNG sns
out in an instant and Gavin was left !.
above the abyss, his fingers twined
about the second rope and his feet
vainly seeking hold against the time
worn stone.
Men fight for their lives in many
ways-the towards desperately and
without reason, brave men with a quick
apprehension of the circumstances and
a bold course from which fear does not
divert them. Desperate as Gavin $
situation had become, he realized the
whole truth of it in an instant. Forty
feet below. him was the square-fagged
pavement built about the belfry door:
strained against the stone of the para
pet here buln 1ga outward ss nl,a and difficult
lieyed that he might touch the parapet,
but to mount it would be an acrobat $
task. Other help seemed impossible to
bring. His assistants had gone down
to the outer stables to load up the per-
manent scaffold. His quick eye could
not detect the presence of single hui
man being in the vicinity of the gar
dcns. Evelyn herself stood as one pet
rified by the battlements, afraid for the
lest the spell of his monetary safety
would be broken. She had never pos
sessed that particular courage which
stands upon a height unfinchingly, and
this dreadful accident found all her
nervous impulse paralyzed and shat
terror beyond all words to describe,
for the broken cry which would speak
Of death; for the sound of a body fall
ing upon the flags below. Infinitely
beyond Gavin Ord s, her Imagination
added It's darkest. picture to her handi
work. She clinched her hands, fearing
their clumsiness, and with eyes half.
closed drew back from the battlements.
Never until this day had she seen
man die; never had she been asked to
take an instantaneous resolution where
in the measure of her own peril might
9 De the measure OF announcer man SAFE
ty. II for the briefest instant she
failed to answer the call, cowardice had
: no part in her irrresolution. Few
would have acted otherwise. =
Gavin climbed the rope almost inch
by. inch, seeking as he did so foot
hold upon the rotting stone and careful
always to bring no sudden jerk upon
eternity before he reached the forbid
ding parapet where the graver danger
must be faced; but when he did so and
tried to put an arm over the bullying
stone, then he understood that if none.
came to his assistance, he was most
crumbled corniee became so much pow
dereds dust whenever his feet touched
it-he could find no foothold there, nor
so much as feel a single projection
upon the buttress by which he might
pull himself up to safety. And his
threatened to become into1erable, the
rope cut his hands until drops of blood
trickled from them to >his face. Sal
walton depended upon that which he
could do while man might count
twenty, and with death looking up at
him exultingly,. he made last effort to
Se hs 9ag faa P Rsps and
was impossible.
My God" he cried aloud; II can
not do it cannot do IT'LL
Perhaps he no longer feared death.
rs There is this merit of exhaustion in
danger that it blinds the imagination
4 and leaves indifference to the ultimate
issue. Gavin was just at that point
when man is incapable Of further
effort, even in the cause of his own
safety, when, looking up, he perceived
Evelyn at the balustrade, her face
deathly white, her eyes shining terror;
but her acts were as cool and collected
as they had been when first he met her
in the long gallery of Melbourne
Hall. Walked from the trance of fear
by the words he had spoken, she cast
one quick glance at the figure swayine
upon the rope; then turned about hel
and, stooping, she picked up the lons
rope which her own indebtedness haG
displaced from the bat Elements. Meth
odicaIy and without a blunder, she
made moose in this and passed it owe,