“It’s a carrier, all right,” Joe said. “I bet it’s come a long way.”
The bird, however, would not be coaxed to the ground or into the big cage. It really did appear exhausted.
“I bet if I could get up there on the stable roof, I could pick it right up in my hand,” cried Joe. “I’m—I’m a-going—to try it!”
“Oh!” murmured Roger, both his eyes and mouth very round.
Joe was no “blowhard,” as the boys say. When he said he’d do a thing he did his best to accomplish it. He threw off his thick jacket that would have hampered him, and kicked aside his overshoes that made his feet clumsy, and started to go aloft in the stable.
“You go outside and watch, Roger,” he commanded. “There’s no skylight in this old barn roof—only the cupola, and I can’t get out through that.”
“How are you going to do it then?” gasped Roger.
“You’ll see,” his brother said with assurance, and began to climb the hay ladder into the top loft of the building.
Roger ran out just in time to see Joe open the small door up in the peak of the stable roof. There were water-troughs all around the roof, for the cattle were supplied with drinking water from cisterns built under the ground.
A leader ran down each corner of the stable, and one of these was within reach of Joe Dale’s hands when he swung himself out upon the door he had opened.