"Do you realize," she panted, disentangling herself, "that you were pulling yourself out of this space into that one?"
"Thanks!" said Phil. "Never say die. More careful this time, and a smaller one."
He reached out and grasped a ball smaller than a golf-ball, and pulled carefully, keeping an eye upon Ione. There was resistance to his pull, but gradually the ball came. It seemed heavy. There was a crack as of breaking wood, and he fell backward, with a wave of nausea sweeping strongly over him. He gazed in amazement at a heavy wooden stick that he held in his hands. The only thing about it that suggested the ball for which he had reached was its diameter.
"Can't understand it, but appreciate it just the same," he said. He broke the stick in two, and had two excellent clubs.
"Simple," Ione replied. "The balls are cross-sections of these trees or sticks which grow in a 'space' at right angles to our own; and we only see their three-dimensional cross-sections."
"Yes," said Phil. "Cabbages and kings. I'm for you and the party."
A short walk brought them to the "space" of the vines. After testing the matter out carefully, they found that they could each pull two of them at a time. The vines stretched amazingly when they found those whose far ends were fixed firmly in the tangle, permitting them to carry their own ends along with them toward the safe. Phil wound his vines around his left arm and stuck one club through his belt. The other he got ready for the wooden animals.
He needed it. The size of the pack was doubled, and he rapped them till his hand was numb before he and Ione got by. Their vines drew out thin, but held until they were firmly tied about the safe. They went back after four more.
"I should judge," said Phil, "that by the time we get thirty or forty, the elastic pull will be strong enough to drag the safe back with them as they snap back home."