“You’ve got to be,” declared Lanny. “Out you come, now. If you don’t we’ll go up there and get you. I’m not going to have a perfectly good rescue spoiled by you.”
“Yes, please do,” begged Nan.
“A rescue! A rescue!” chanted Kid shrilly, dancing around in the snow. Small debated with himself a minute and finally disappeared in search of sweater and cap.
“You fellows make me tired,” he growled when he returned to the window. “Why can’t you let me alone? I don’t want to be rescued. I don’t want to go skating. I don’t want——”
“Cut out the regrets and hurry the job,” advised Lanny.
Small cautiously climbed over the sill and set one foot tentatively on the ladder. Then he looked down. It seemed an awfully long way to the ground. “Some one hold it,” he grumbled. Lanny and Nan obeyed. Small tried the second rung, found that it held and that he was still alive, and essayed the third. His head was below the window sill now and the rescue was progressing famously. At that instant Kid harkened to the voice of the Imp of Mischief.
“Small,” he called, “try that next round with your foot before you put your weight on it. It looks weak.”
Small turned and cast a horrified look at the rung in question, and clung desperately to the ladder.
“It—it’s cracked, I think,” he stammered. “I—I guess I’ll go back.”