ick off on the free pulley-block and come sliding down.
Hoooo! And there are the others jumping at the falls after him, and
coming down with a rush, laughing. Risking their lives? One would say
they never thought of it.

"Why, that's nothing!" said one of them; "we used to slide down the
falls from the top of the tower. But you've got to know the trick or the
ropes'll burn through your trousers. It's a great slide, though."

"Aren't you ever afraid of falling?" I asked a serious-faced young man
who was running one of the niggerheads.

[Illustration: ON THE "TRAVELER." HOISTING A STRUT.]

"I'll tell you how it is," said he; "we're not afraid when a lot of us
do a thing together, but each one might be afraid to do it alone. In
our hearts I guess we're all afraid."

"Ever have an accident yourself?"

"No," he said, "but--" He hesitated, and then explained that he had been
standing near the day "Chick" Chandler fell from the Brooklyn tower. It
hadn't been a nice thing to see, and--

Finally I got the story. Chandler, it seems, was the first man killed on
the bridge, and he died for a jest. He was working that day on the
one-hundred-and-ten-foot level; he was an experienced man and counted
sure of foot. It had begun to sprinkle, and the men were looking about
for their rain-coats, when Chandler, in a spirit of mischief, started
across a girder for an oil-skin that belonged to a comrade. And so
interested was he in this little prank that he forgot prudence, perhaps
forgot where he was, and the next second he was falling, and presently
there was the shock of impact far below, and then a red No. 1 was
branded on the ugly black bridge.

III

WHICH TELLS OF MEN WHO HAVE FALLEN FROM GREAT HEIGHTS

THERE is this to note about falls from bridges, that the very short ones
often kill as surely as the long ones. They told me of one case where a
man fell eight feet and broke his neck, while other men have fallen from
great heights and escaped. A workman of the Berlin Bridge Company, for
instance, fell from a structure in New Hampshire, one hundred and twenty
feet, and lived. And I myself saw Harry Fleager on the East River
Bridge, New York, and from his own lips heard his remarkable experience.
Fleager is to-day a sturdy, active young man, and when I saw him he was
running a thumping niggerhead engine on the end-span. Nevertheless, it
was only a few months since he had fallen ninety-seven feet smash down
to a pile of