"You'll get through." Darrin still remained standing on top of the spire after Dick had started to climb.
The only way that Prescott could move upward was to wrap arms and legs around the pole.
How the wind swayed, jarred and vibrated it! Once, when ten feet of the ascent had been accomplished, Dick felt his heart fail him.
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.