"It's mighty funny, but you see I remembered about this here trap the boys had set, hopin' some of your crowd would take a tumble. I told 'em I wouldn't stand for it after what had happened; so a bunch o' us was on the way out here to put back the planks, when we heard shouts, and guessed somebody had fallen in. The rest dodged into the bushes, but I commenced to run this way. Then I met Will, here."
"And we got the ladder. He was only too willing to help," went on Will, plainly fully believing in the change of heart on the town bully's part.
"Say, that's all mighty interesting, but talk to me about it after you get a fellow out of this black hole. I thought I felt a snake right then. We used to kill 'em in here, too. Poke the ladder down, boys, please."
"That's a fact. As the drowning boy said: 'Save me first and scold me afterward.' Let me give you a hand, boys," remarked Frank.
"Hey! be careful there about getting too close to the edge. The whole bunch of you will be in on top of me if you don't look out. I had a crack on the head from a rock right then. And be careful how you poke that ladder down, or you may stick it through me like a lady's hatpin. Now I've got hold of the end, lower away, all."
So under the directions of the boy who was in the hole, and in a position to see how things lay, the single-pole ladder was placed in position.
"I'm coming up now, fellows; don't let the dirt crumble in on me," called Jerry.
"It does beat all how the adventures crowd you, old man. Here the rest of us just go along in an average way, and nothing happens to anybody to stir the blood. Hang it, I say it's hardly fair," remarked Frank, in pretended chagrin.
Jerry began to appear in view, clinging to the ladder, for it was a rather rickety affair, and threatening constantly to turn around, so that he had to fasten both knees and hands to the pole as he mounted.
"Keep her straight, Andy; you understand how hard it is to hustle up this old beam. I'm getting there all right, and don't you forget it," he kept saying, with a broad grin on his happy-go-lucky face as it came into plain view.