“Don’t drop,” Tom warned; “it’s too far.”
“There’s a rock sticking out if I can only reach it with my foot,” Brent called. “I wish I was a few inches taller.”
“Come back and I’ll try it,” Tom said.
“I can’t get back, either,” answered Brent; “that piece of root I had hold of broke off. They don’t put the material into roots that they used to—quantity production, I suppose. I’m stranded—also sanded; my eyes are full of earth and woods and mountains and things. I bet that rock landed right on my eyeglass case.”
“Watch your step,” Tom called down.
“I haven’t got any step,” Brent answered. “Is this a time for joking?”
At last, by a series of perilous acrobatics, he reached the bottom. “Here I am on terra cotta, or firma, or whatever they call it,” he shouted. “If we don’t find the money I’m going to climb buildings—Harold Lloyd. I’d climb the Woolworth Building for five and ten cents. Well, here I am; I wonder what property’s worth down here?”
“Is it solid?” Tom called down.
“It’s nice and springy,” said Brent. “I think I can be very happy down here; I suppose I’ll have to be, for I don’t know how I’m going to get up again. The root of the trouble, or I should say the trouble with the root⸺”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Tom called. “I’ll get a rope.”