“Somebody’ll have to go and get it,” said Nelson.
“Where’d you leave it?”
“You couldn’t find it in a week,” answered Dan in vexation. “Here, let’s get these things rigged up. It would take half an hour to go down there and back the way we came. You can let me down with the rope and I’ll find it.”
So they set to work. The board was lashed firmly to one end of an inch rope, the can of paint was opened, one end of the other length of rope was tied into a noose, and the hook was passed through the rope at the end of the swing.
“That looks like awfully small rope,” said Tom.
“But it hasn’t got to hold you, my boy,” said Dan. “Pass the end of it around that tree, fellows. That’s it. Now let’s see where to put it over.” He sank onto his hands and knees and crawled to the edge of the bluff. “Here’s a good place,” he said, and dropped the swing over the edge. “Now haul up the slack, Bob.”
“Look here,” said Nelson, “it will be easy enough letting you down, but are you sure we can pull you up again?”
“Well, if you can’t—!” Dan’s tones spoke volumes of contempt. “But you’ll have to unwind the rope from that tree, you know, and pull on it directly.”
“Wouldn’t it be safer if we left it snubbed around the tree and pulled on it here at the edge, letting some one take up the slack at the tree?”