“Scouts, make a blanket-roll and tie a rope as taught in handbook for hiking and carrying over mountains, or cross-country.”
In an incredibly short time the scouts had rolled their blankets and bound the ropes about them, ready to sling over their shoulders for a march.
“Now pair off and make reef knots of each two lengths of rope, to demonstrate the way to lengthen a rope which may be too short for the need it has to be put to.”
The visitors deftly tied these knots, and Miss Mason said: “Now show the scouts how to make sure it is reliable when put to the test where safety and security of the knot is necessary.”
When this was proven, the captain said: “Show how a rope must be adjusted when a victim of accident has to be drawn up or lowered to or from a height.”
This performance needed a lightweight scout who could climb a tree or ladder and be saved from fancied danger. So the lightest member of Patrol One climbed the maple tree on the lawn and was soon sitting astride the bough. The life-line was flung over the limb and the girl managed to get into the loop and sit therein while she held to the rope above her head. The line was then lowered to the ground to show the efficiency of the knot that held the loop from slipping.
“Some day when Patrol Two visits us at Camp, we will show them how quickly one can be rescued from the waves. We’ll throw a line to one of our girls out in the stream and save her life,” said Miss Mason, after the last trial of the loop-knot.
Miss Mason then asked the members of Patrol Two to reply: “What would you do if you saw someone drowning, or fallen from a cliff, and the only way to save him was by means of a rope?”
Janet stood up and answered for the other girls: “We’d make the loop for the needy one to sit in, or we would tie knots in the length of rope so he could get a grip hold on the rope until he was drawn up, or could climb up, hand over hand.”
“That is correct. I suppose you all read the account given in our book of those people who went over the Lesser Falls of Niagara, who might have been saved had the rescuers known how to tie these knots. But the rope that was thrown stripped through the hold of the poor folks. Again the handbook says that had a bowline been tied in the rope, the victims of the disaster could have been raised in safety, for each one could have been seated in the loop and lifted without any struggle.”