“How’d you do it?” says Mr. House.
“Simple. Just had you folks lift the pole and slipped my hands under the bottom when it came out of the sand.”
Mr. Dunn clucked like a fat duck. “Say, young man, you have got a head, haven’t you—for all the nonsense there’s in it. I never would have thought of that.”
“Quite likely,” says Catty. “Now I’ve got to get my hands loose. Here, I’ll back up to you, Wee-wee, and you see if you can get into my back pocket for my knife.... Look out!”
He plunked down where he had been with his hands behind him, and he was just in time about it, too, for the guard came nosing in to take a look. Everything seemed all right, I guess, so he slouched out again.
“Now,” says Catty, and I tried to get into his pocket. It was hard work, but I managed after a couple of minutes, and got his knife in my fingers. I passed it to him. He could work freer than any of us because he could move his arms and the pole didn’t interfere, so it wasn’t much trouble for him to open the knife.
“Here, Wee-wee,” says he, “take it in your teeth and bite hard. I’ll kneel right in front of you, and you see if you can’t saw this rope in two. You can do it.”
I tried. Now I want to say that it wasn’t half as easy as it sounded. Just you hold a knife in your mouth and try to cut a rope with it. Your neck doesn’t work. And after a while you get a crick—and—but what’s the use? It did cut through after a while, and Catty was free.
He took the knife then and cut the rest of us loose, and there we were.
“Better sit down around the pole again until we make up our minds just what to do,” says he. “If we go moving around the guard’s apt to see us against the light here, or to hear us.”