The Waterbury Democrat., 1933-12-22

ture he Str0Ve In Valn 70 repl
 At his side lay a great police dog. it's head resting between it's paws. The dogs eyes watched its master and there seemed to be q puzzled expression on the dogs face as though it were wondering what could be the matetr. It was not often that he saw his master so solemn. There was even a diff ference in the way his master was batting his head. The touch of the hand was light, not the familiar hearty slap with which he greeted him.
 For the fourth time Jimmie raised the crumpled sheet of paper he held in his left hand and let his eyes run over the last few lines shakily scrawled on it's surface.
 'Of course, son, he read, "T
 realize that you must make your
 way in the world and cannot
 neglect your business. But I do
 hope that you can arrange to be
 home this Christmas. It has
 been a long time since we had
 Christmas dinner together, and now that l am alone here at
 home it gets rather lonesome at
 times. l seem to miss you more
 now that your father has gone.
 But know you will come if you
 can. If you cannot, you'll know
 that mother is thinking of you
 when you eat your dinner, wher- ever you arc"
 Jimmies eyes returned to those words, cannot neglect your bus ness.' That was like mother! It was Q good thing she did not know the real facts of the case. Busi- ness? For a parachute jumper? There was simply no such thing. People were tired of seeing men jump from planes and come to twenty jumped at a time they might be interested in it as spec. tacle, that was all. When the jumping no longer interested the people it no longer interested the booking agents or the officials of the air meets. As. result, fees for jumps were small, pitifully so. Home was in the north, many hundreds of miles away and far more dollars in fare than Jimmie could hope to earn in the short three weeks before Christmas.
 The longer he sat there ponder ing on the subject, the darker the outlook appeared to Jimmie. He saw no way of getting home for Christmas. He would be lucky if he and Pal, his dog, ate Christmas dinner at all! As though sensing his masters dejection, the great dog arose and leaned against Jimmie's side, muzzling his face. JIMMIE PUT HIS ARM
 AROUND THE DOG
 Jimmie put his arm around the dog and drew him to him. He racked his brain for some idea which would be an innovation, something he could add to his jump which would draw the pub- lie and in doing that, draw more money for himself. Then, as he patted the dog, he saw d pos sibility.
 For a moment he weighed the idea and then rejected it. No, it would never do and besides, it was not practical. He pondered on some new thrill to be added to a delayed jump, where the jumper let himself fall through space un- til the last moment before pulling his rip cord on the chute. There seemed nothing under the sun which had not been done in that way. Jimmie himself had invent ed many new thrills. He had not won his nickname of Wild for nothing! His mind returned to his first idea.
 The more he thought on it the better it seemed. Yet, it did not appeal to him. The risks were not great but he was risking a friend, one of his best friends. He turned and looked at Pal.
 "Pal," he said to the dog, "I know you'd just about go through anything for me. But wonder how far you would go? wonder