“We must ring the bell,” gasped Helen, as she glanced up at an old rope that dangled in the center of the fire-house from a big bell which hung motionless in the small tower above their heads.
The three girls sprang for the rope, but the Sport was the quickest and caught the dangling rope in her hands. Summoning all her strength she gave it a hard pull. The next instant, as the loud clang of the bell rang out, the girls heard a sudden imprecation, and looked hastily down to see the Sport with a rueful countenance sitting on the floor—the rope had broken in her grasp!
CHAPTER XIV—OVERCOMES
The girls gazed in wide-eyed surprise at their prostrate companion, and then, as they saw that she was not hurt, their sense of humor broke bounds, and they burst into merry peals of laughter, for she did look so comical sitting there with that “Where—am—I?” sort of look on her face.
But the Sport was too excited to mind bumps or laughter as she jumped up and peered above her head. “The rope has broken!” she exclaimed irritably. “Oh, if I could only get hold of that broken end up there,” her eyes leaped quickly around the barn, “I could ring the bell again. Oh, there’s a ladder!” With an alert spring she had grabbed it and then began to drag it under the tower.
The girls by this time had recovered from their unwonted merriment, and, feeling somewhat ashamed of leaving the Sport to work unaided, rushed to her assistance. They soon had the ladder resting against a broad beam that ran across the barn directly under the tower where the broken piece of rope still swung.
Up the ladder climbed Edith, high to the top, but alas, she was just a few inches short of touching the swaying rope, which she now perceived was fastened to a chain that hung from the bell.
“Oh, what will you do?” cried Helen, as the two girls stretched their necks almost off their shoulders to see if there was not some way out of the difficulty.
“I know what I will do,” exclaimed the Sport suddenly. “I will climb up on the beam, walk a few steps, and then I can reach it.”