“If I make a mess of it, fellows, kindly see that you find all the pieces,” he called. “And don’t forget to put on my headstone ‘Requiescat in pieces.’”
Then the flaming red head disappeared, and the fellows let the rope slip slowly around the tree. It seemed a long while before it slackened. When Bob got to the edge Dan was scrambling over the rocks into the bushes. Presently he was back flourishing the brush and can.
“We don’t need to pull you all the way up again,” shouted Bob. “We’ll get you up where you are going to paint and then lower the can down to you. Is that all right?”
“All right,” echoed Dan. Then he stepped onto the seat at the end of the rope and waved his hand. Bob and Nelson laid back on the rope, and slowly it began to come up over the log, Tom securing the slack after each haul with a double turn around the tree. Finally there came a shout, and, after a glance over the edge, Bob directed them to make fast, and tied the twine to the can of blue paint and lowered it. Suddenly there was a yell of dismay and wrath from below.
“See what’s wrong!” cried Bob.
Nelson crawled to the edge and peered over. Then he crawled back, and seemed to be having a fit on the turf. Tom looked down, and then joined Nelson.
Bob stared at them as though they had suddenly gone insane. “What’s the matter, you idiots?” he cried. But Tom only shrieked the louder, while Nelson rolled onto his back, held his sides, and kicked his heels into the turf, gasping. In disgust Bob got cautiously to his knees, tied the line around a stake, and had a look for himself. Thirty feet beneath sat Dan on his wooden seat, muttering incoherently under a baptism of bright blue paint. The can had caught on the edge of a tiny projecting ledge and had tilted in such a way that a portion of the contents had slopped over onto Dan’s bare head, and even yet was still trickling a tiny stream. At first glance, so thoroughly was Dan’s head and face adorned, it seemed to Bob that the entire contents of the can must have been emptied. But a second glance showed him that at least three-fourths of the paint still remained at the end of the cord. He swung it away so that it no longer dripped, and hailed Dan.
“What’s the good of wasting the stuff like that, Dan?” he asked with simulated anger.
Dan raised a strange blue visage from which his eyes peeped coyly upward. “If you’ll haul me up I’ll lick you within an inch of your life!” he said solemnly. Then he spat and sputtered and tried to wipe the sticky fluid from his face with his arm, his hands being already well covered.
Tom and Nelson, who had managed to creep to the edge for another look, here retired precipitately so that they might indulge their mirth where there was no danger of laughing themselves over the edge.