"I wish I could wipe the sweat off my hand." Then, as if his dogged resolution were not enough, he added, almost appealingly, "Don't _you_ drop and--and go back on me." _Uncle Sam_ only swung a little in the breeze and wriggled like an eel in the watery mirror.
Slowly Tom loosened his perspiring left hand, not daring to withdraw it.
The act seemed to communicate an extra strain to every part of his body.
Of all the fateful moments of his life, this seemed to be the most tense.

Then, in an impulse of desperation, he drew his left hand away.
"I won't--let--go," he muttered.
The muscles on his taut right arm stood out like cords.

His forearm throbbed with an indescribable, pulling pain.

There was a feeling of dull soreness in his shoulder blade.

His perspiring hand closed tighter around the wheel's rim and he could feel his pulse pounding.