“No, but I wish we could. He’s been on the job pretty brisk, lately. Just haul the cord, and then I’ll be back to explain more,” and leaving a stout string in Tom’s hands Dutch hurried away. The three chums tried to guess what was to follow, and made all sorts of wild hazards, in the midst of which they were interrupted by hearing from below the cautious imitation of the trill of a tree-toad, thrice repeated.
“Lower the cord,” whispered Phil, and Tom dangled it from the window. In a few minutes he felt two tugs, which was the signal for hauling up, and he pulled until he had hoisted to his window sill a coil of strong wire. The inseparables were wondering what it was for, when Dutch reappeared.
“Anything heavy we can fasten this to?” he asked, as his eyes roved about the room.
“There’s the alarm clock,” replied Sid. “It wakes us out of a heavy sleep, sometimes.”
“Rotten joke,” commented Dutch. “Here, this will do,” and he approached the old sofa, holding the coil of wire.
“It won’t damage it; will it?” cried Phil in some alarm.
“Impossible, son! Impossible!” replied Dutch. “I only want to anchor the wire to the sofa. There we are,” and he rapidly made a loop in the wire, and strung it around the ancient piece of furniture. Then the other end of the wire was dangled out of the window. It was promptly pulled taut, and seemed to be stretched out for some distance.
“That’s the stuff!” commented Dutch. “Holly and the rest of the boys are on the job.”
“But what are you going to do?” asked Tom, much mystified.