Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial402dodg).pdf/219

"Easy now, old boy!" cautioned McGreggor. "If you 're thinking of hitching the rope to the leg of a vulture and making him carry it up—"

"I 'm not silly!" said Evans. "But I 've got an idea from the vultures—it was your idea."

"My idea?"

"Remember that deep valley near Jerusalem? You said it would be a great place to study flying-machines. Well, there's a flying-machine we could make. It 's a very simple kind, but it would lift that rope, and, if the wind was right, we could steer it over the balcony where Father was!"

McGreggor listened incredulously. "I 'll bet you four dollars and sixty-nine cents you can't make a flying-machine that will do that!"

"I said we could do it. You 'll help me, won't you? We can make a big kite, can't we? A big box-kite? I remember reading about a kite that lifted a man twenty or thirty feet."

The boys faced each other in silence as the idea took form in their minds. "By Jove!" exclaimed Jack, beginning to be impressed.

"Will you help me build it?"

"Sure I 'll help you!" answered McGreggor. Then, after a pause, he shook his head slowly. "But you can't steer a kits up to that case, Sandy. You can't do it in a million years."