Page:St. Nicholas, vol. 40.1 (1912-1913).djvu/605

 1913] pushed through without spreading the steel floor beams apart.

There were no treads on the stairway leading to the next floor, and so we had to hunt for a ladder. To reach the ladder, we were obliged to pass an open shaft with no rail around it. It seemed to run all the way to the ground floor. We walked along a plank which lay at the foot of a high pile of lumber at the very brink of this deep well. I knew better than to look down, because I was too apt to get dizzy, but Will caught hold of a cable and leaned far over the edge. Suddenly the cable moved up, yanking Will almost off his feet. I caught and steadied him.

“See here, Will,” I shouted, “what ’s the use of taking chances? Suppose that cable had started running down; nothing could have saved you.”

“How did I know the cable was alive?”

“That ’s just the point; because you don’t know, you can’t afford to be careless.”

We climbed on up to the thirty-sixth story, and found no flooring except some boards here and there. That ladder did not take us any farther, but we saw one off to the right at the outside of the building. Up this ladder Will climbed, and I followed him. The wind was blowing so hard that most of the time I had to hold my hat on. And there, far, far below us, was the street—500 feet sheer. The ladder was a double one, like the others, but was not secured; and, to make matters worse, half-way up there was a temporary platform which projected across our path, so that we had to reach far out on one side and worm our way past it. When we reached the thirty-seventh story, I determined that I had had enough. There was absolutely no flooring above me except a pile of planks and no flooring on the story above that; but the thirty-ninth apparently was provided with a complete plank flooring.

“No, sir, Will, not on a day like this. I ’m going no higher when I have to hold my hat on all the time.”

“Well, I’m not going to quit,” said Will, ‘‘as long as we are so near the top. Here, you look out for my hat, please,” he said, placing it on a board and wedging the brim under a steel beam. “I don’t need a hat. I ’m going way to the top.”

I watched Will climb up steadily, story after story, until he disappeared through the hatchway in the top floor.