“See, little daughter,” explained Stumpy, kindly; “I tie little string to arrow, tie big rope with loop on end to string, then shoot arrow up to Ronnie. He pull up rope and slip loop round big rock. Then I climb up rope, so”—illustrating hand-over-hand movement—“and I be up there pretty quick.”
“But how can you get Ronnie down? He couldn’t climb down a rope.”
“No, that all right. He know. I do that one day up by Lighthouse. You remember? I let your father down by rope to get little lamb that fall over cliff and catch on rock. You remember?”
“Oh, yes,” eagerly. “Stumpy’s coming, Stumpy’s coming!” she cried, turning to the boy.
The proper arrow was finally selected, the cord fastened to it, the great bow bent, and whiz! went the shaft to its mark, the side of the Gateway. In a moment Ronald had snatched it, pulled up the rope with all the strength of eight-year-old arms, found the loop and slipped it over a convenient peak. He tried it to see that it was taut—(“Smart boy, that!” murmured Stumpy)—and waved his hand to show that it was all right.
Stumpy limped to where the end of the rope hung dangling, threw off his cap and woolen jacket, wet his hands in a pool of the rocks and started to climb, as he had once done on shipboard. It was not far—one hundred feet, perhaps—but far enough for a one-legged man and far enough for a small boy shivering in the windy Gateway above, who knew well enough that he should not have been where he was and that he was causing untold trouble by his carelessness.
There were sharp points and projections here and there in the great rock against which Stumpy could rest his good foot and get a little breath, but he reached the top almost at the end of his strength and unable to return Ronald’s bear-like hug of welcome.
“You get down, young man, ’bout as soon as you can,” he panted. “This be ’bout the last time Stumpy get you out o’ trouble. He getting too old.”
So saying he pulled up the end of the rope, motioned the boy to come nearer, fastened it cleverly about his body with loops over the shoulders, told him to sit down in the threshold of the Gateway, with legs hanging over the cliff, and with a “Ready, now! All right!” lowered him slowly downward into Lesley’s arms. The old sailor braced himself, meantime, against the needle of rock where the rope was fastened, but even so and with Ronald’s light weight it was all he could do to manage the job, and the boy noted with distress how long it took his beloved friend and playmate to recover his breath and gather strength to climb down the rope himself.
Ronald was ready to meet him when he reached the safety of the rocks below and to hold out his hand and say, like a man, “I’m sorry, Stumpy, and I’ll never be so careless again. Thank you, and Mother and Father will thank you, too.”