“Wish I could stand on my heels for a while,” said Laurie. “My toes are trying to dance. Where’s Ned gone for the rope?”
“To the quarry, he said,” Polly replied. “If Bob and I made a sort of rope of our clothes, Laurie, wouldn’t it be better than a pole?”
“Don’t believe so. I wouldn’t feel awfully easy in my mind if I trusted to that sort of rope. Anyway, I don’t intend to have you make rags of your new dress!”
“Oh, Laurie, as if a new dress mattered!” exclaimed Polly. “I do wish it wasn’t so thin, though. Here comes Bob.”
Bob brought the dead trunk of a young black birch about five inches thick at the butt where, by hacking with his knife and twisting, he had managed to sever it. Now he slashed the larger branches away. “Good thing it’s dried out,” he said to Polly. “If it wasn’t it would be too heavy to hold. Hope it’s long enough!”
“Oh, Bob, I don’t believe it is,” said Polly anxiously.
“If it isn’t I can find one that is.”
But it was. When Bob had lowered the smaller end down the cliff at Laurie’s right and Laurie had very carefully and rather fearfully unclasped his numb fingers from their rocky hold and clutched them about the tree there remained a few inches of the butt end above the level of the ground. Taking a firm hold with both hands at arm’s length as he lay facedown, Bob smiled his satisfaction.
“She’ll hold you, Nod, even if the shelf you’re standing on gives way! Polly can sit on my legs if she has to, and after that I’m good for all day.”
“Gee, that’s a lot better,” said Laurie. “Wow, that arm was almost out at the socket! Can you see this fault, as you call it from where you are?”