eath or
broken bones, but that was a hazard which Foster was willing to take.

It was the thought of what would happen in the brief moment of contact
when his body met that bare cable that drained the color from Foster's
face. There was the terrific electrical energy from a spinning world
coursing through that silver strand, a force that in all probability was
powerful enough to instantly char a human body to a glowing cinder!

* * * * *

If he could only insulate his body at the point where it would touch the
cable he might have at least a chance of surviving the contact. The only
possible insulating medium he had was the clothing he wore--a pair of
heavy corduroy trousers and the sleeveless remnant of a woolen shirt.
They could be rolled into a bundle that would be bulky enough to at
least give him some protection from contact with the bare cable.

Laying the empty pistol on the girder beside him, he stripped as quickly
as his precarious perch would permit. Then, using the pistol as a
central core to give body to the bundle, he swathed it deep within the
folds of the clothing, making a thick roll that he could hold in his
right hand as he leaped.

At best the insulating qualities of the roll would be far from perfect,
yet it might serve to minimize the effects of the cable's charge enough
to give him some chance of escaping alive. His contact with the power
line would be only for the fractional part of a second and his body
would be completely in the air at the time, out of direct contact with
anything through which the cable's charge might ground.

Foster crouched on the girder, his eyes fixed upon the scene below as he
tensely waited for the best moment to make the leap. The machine had
shifted its position slightly while he had been stripping. It was now
too far over the right to be under the cable when it fell.

For a moment as the machine maneuvered still farther over to the right
in its conflict with the cornered men, Foster was afraid that his
opportunity had passed. An idea came to him and he yelled directions.
One of the men suddenly dashed to the left, apparently in a last frantic
effort to escape the metal colossus. The machine flashed quickly over to
head the fugitive off. The maneuver brought it for the moment directly
under Foster's position.

Foster's muscles tensed swiftly, then flung his body headlong out into
space. His aim was perfect. The bulky roll of cloth i