"Climb the rope? Oh, you'd better not try that, Peggy! it takes a lot of practice. Why, I've been here two years, and I can't get to the top yet. Really, it's very hard. Let's come and swing on the ring, if you are quite sure about your poor nose."
But Peggy did not want to swing on the rings, nor to do anything else that Bertha proposed; she wanted to climb that rope, and she meant to do it; the prairie blood was roused.
"Well, I'll ask Miss Brent," said good-natured Bertha, finding her determined. "You say you have had some experience in climbing? Perhaps she'll let you go a little way up."
Miss Brent, interrogated, came and looked Peggy over carefully; felt her muscles, asked her a few questions, and then said, "You may have the next turn, Miss Montfort."
"UP THEY WENT, HAND OVER HAND."
The girl on the rope next her was having a sad time of it. She swung this way and that; her legs waved wildly in the air; and at length she came down "all abroad," having only ascended a few feet. At the same moment, the girl on the next rope dropped, so that two were left unoccupied. Peggy advanced and laid her hand upon one rope, just as Vivia Varnham took possession of the other. On the third, the pensive girl with the Madonna braids was swinging easily, half-way up to the ceiling; she twisted her feet around the rope, and, so resting, observed the progress of the other two.
Up they went, hand over hand. Vivia Varnham gave a glance of disdain when she saw who her rival was. She was light and agile, and did not for an instant think that this heavy, clumsy creature could make any headway against her. She went up lightly and easily, but somehow the heavy, clumsy creature managed to keep abreast of her; was even gaining upon her, drawing up, up, above her head. Vivia put on a spurt, and passed Peggy, climbing very swiftly—for a moment; then the ache in her wrists compelled her to slacken her rate of speed, and the thickset figure came up, up, steadily and surely. Truth to tell, though Peggy Montfort was awkward, she was as strong as a steer. Her weight was not fat, but sheer bone and brawn; and her one hundred and forty pounds were easy enough for her to carry, even up a rope thirty feet long. But Vivia Varnham, with all her lightness and quickness, had little strength in her wrists. They ached painfully, but she would not give up. Her face flushed, her breath came in distressful gasps, she struggled on and up. They were more than half-way up; they had passed the quiet observer, swinging comfortably with her feet twisted in her rope. "Better go down, V.!" said the girl with the sad eyes. "She's too many for you!"
Vivia shook her head with an angry gesture. Her eyes swam, the pain in her wrists was unendurable; but she set her teeth, and struggled on, till from below came the voice of Miss Brent, calm and authoritative.
"Come down, Miss Varnham! You have gone far enough."