“There isn’t any long enough to reach up there—you know that,” said Roger.
Neither he nor Joe observed the fact that, even had there been a ladder, the smaller boy could not have raised it into place so that Joe could have descended upon it.
None of the men working on the place was at hand. Ned and Nat were off on some errand in their car. Secretly, Roger was panic stricken and might have run for Dorothy, for she was still his refuge in all troubles.
But Joe was older—and thought himself wiser. “We’ve just got to find a ladder—you’ve got to find it, Roger. I can’t sit up here a-straddle of this old roof all day. It’s co-o-old!”
Roger started off blindly. He could not remember whether any of the neighbors possessed long ladders or not. But as he came down to the street corner of the White property he saw a red box affixed to a telegraph pole on the edge of the sidewalk.
“Oh, bully!” gasped Roger, and immediately scrambled over the fence.
He knew what that red box was for. It had been explained to him, and he had longed for a good reason for experimenting with it. You broke the little square of glass and pulled down the hook inside—-
That is how Ned and Nat, whizzing homeward in their car, came to join the procession of the Fire Department racing out of town toward The Cedars.
“Where’s the fire, Cal?” yelled Nat, seeing a man he knew riding on the ladder truck.
“Right near your house, Mr. White. At any rate, that was the number pulled—that box by the corner of your mother’s place.”