"If you can't pull me up, let me down," directed Bobby.
"That won't do any good," said Jimmy. "You'll only go into the water and drown, for there's no place for you to stand."
"Well," Bobby insisted, "let me down nearer the water. I feel all the time as though the line was going to break, and I'm so high up from it that it makes me dizzy swinging around this way."
"Holler when you want me to stop," shouted Jimmy, rising and running back.
But Jimmy found that after all he could let Bobby down only a very little way when he came to the end of the line. So he fastened it again.
"That's as far as it will go!" he called, lying down on his face again to look over the cliff at Bobby, who was now about twenty feet above the water.
"Then go and get the boat and fetch it down," shouted Bobby. "Hurry, Jimmy. I can't hang here much longer. I'm getting all numb."
That was a solution of the difficulty that had not occurred to Jimmy, and without delay he ran away along the cliff top and down to the skiff, which was lying a half mile above, and, undoing the painter, rowed with all his might toward Bobby, until presently he drew up directly beneath the swinging lad.
"Can you unfasten the line and drop into the boat, Bobby?" he asked, gazing up.