“Thanks be!” The words were a shout of relief. “The box is out, but oh, Mary! Not a second too soon! The skeleton stage coach is collapsing! It has dropped right down out of sight.”
The two girls sat up with one accord and stared at each other, their faces white.
Mary was the first to speak. Her tone was reproachful. “And yet you were so sure the boys would do nothing to endanger their lives. If that crash had happened one minute sooner, they would both have gone down with it. Dick couldn’t have leaped back in time, and Jerry would have lost his balance, and you needn’t tell me I’m using my imagination, either, for you know it’s true.”
There was no denying that the boys had had a most narrow escape and Dora willingly acknowledged that they had taken a greater risk than she had supposed they would.
“As though finding that lost Bodil, or even getting money to help the Dooleys, was worth endangering their lives,” Mary continued with such a show of indignation that Dora actually laughed. “Since it’s all over, let’s forget it. I’m terribly thrilled about the box. I feel just as sure as the boys do that there will be something in it that will be a clue, or at least, lead to one.”
“Listen,” Mary said. “The boys are calling to us. See, the rope is swaying.”
Lying flat again, Dora peered over and called, “What do you want?”
Jerry replied, “We’re tying the box to the rope. Can you two girls pull it up? Don’t stand near the edge to do it.”
“Wait!” Dick called. Then he said something to Jerry that the girls couldn’t hear. Dora saw the cowboy laugh and pound on his head. “He’s calling himself a dumb-bell, looks like,” she whispered to Mary. Then Jerry’s voice, “I’ll take back that order. You stand by the rock, will you, and grab the rope if it starts to slip. Dick will climb up and help lift the box. He’s such a light weight, he and the box together won’t be any heavier than I am.”
The girls went back to the rock and saw that the rope held. They knelt by it in readiness to seize it if it slipped. They could tell by the tightening of the rope that Dick was ascending. In another moment, he sprang over the edge, pulled up the box without asking the girls for assistance, then dropped the rope down again. Soon they were joined by a beaming Jerry.