“What do you say, Josh?” demanded the sympathetic one.
“Oh! me?” remarked Josh, with a shrug of his shoulders, and not even offering to change his position; “if you asked me straight off the handle now I’d say that it might be only the wind sighing through the trees, or something like that. Don’t stand to reason that anybody could be down there in that well.”
When Hanky Panky met with opposition he always became more positive; possibly the sly Josh knew this full well, and allowed the fact to govern his actions.
“But we all heard the groans, didn’t we?” demanded Hanky Panky; “and I guess I know one when it hits my ears. There certainly is some one down there. Listen to that, will you; isn’t it just fierce the way he keeps going on, though?”
Indeed, the sounds had once more commenced to well up from the dark depths, and in a most agonizing fashion too. Even Rod felt a thrill, although he could give a pretty good guess concerning the nature of the poor unfortunate who was the contributing cause for those dismal groans.
“No use talking, fellows!” declared Hanky Panky presently, after they had listened again to the suggestive sounds that seemed to spell human misery; “I just can’t stand this any longer. Something’s got to be done, that’s what. I’ve a good notion to slip down the rope myself, and find out what it means.”
“But that’d be going a whole lot, just to satisfy your curiosity, wouldn’t it?” asked Josh, cunningly, for he knew that he was taking just the course to further aggravate the other’s intention to act.
“Well, you don’t seem to care much what happens to a poor chap who’s made a fool of himself, and got caught down in a well; but I do,” asserted Hanky Panky, proudly. “I don’t think I could ever sleep decent again if I had the nerve to ride away from here, and never even try to get him out.”
He deliberately started to remove his coat, showing that his mind was made up. Rod looked at Josh, but received in turn a pleading glance, as though the other begged to be let alone, and turn his trick. The chance to “get one” on Hanky Panky was too good to be lost, Josh evidently believed.
So those amazing groans continued to well up out of the depths, increasing in pathos if anything as they proceeded.