Jake had turned the wheel by pulling on a second rope upstairs in the barn, and as the wheel turned it wound up the longer rope. It was the end of this rope that had looped itself about the Elephant.
"How did it happen?" asked Jake again.
"I don't know," Archie replied. "I left my Elephant here when I went to slide down the hay. When I came back he was on the rope."
"Some of you children must have left the Elephant too near the end of the rope," said Jake. "When I wound it up the Elephant became tangled in a loop, and of course he was lifted up."
"Nope! We didn't any of us leave the Elephant near the rope; did we?" asked Archie of his little friends.
"Nope!" they all answered.
"Well, that's queer," said Jake. "That Elephant never got on the rope by himself, I'm sure."
But that is just what the Elephant did, as we know.
"Anyhow I'm glad he's all right now," said Archie, as he looked carefully at his new toy. "None of the stuffing came out."
But it might have, if the Elephant had been left hanging much longer on the rope.