So while Phil leaned over, and thrust himself part-way down into the gaping aperture, his two comrades, seizing hold of his lower extremities, prepared to pull with might and main.
"Now, get busy!" they heard a half-muffled voice say, and at that X-Ray and Ethan began to tug.
There was heard considerable groaning and puffing, but they were not to be denied. Slowly but surely Phil's body was coming upward, until finally the head of Lub appeared above the top of the slab-and-hard-mud chimney.
"I know it's a tough joke on me, boys," he said, humbly enough, after he had clambered on to the roof, and rubbed some of his scraped joints with more or less feeling; "but after all it was an accident."
"How was that, Lub?" asked X-Ray, examining a number of stout stakes which apparently had been cut to certain lengths, and were intended to be fastened crossways in the chimney, being pounded into position with the hatchet.
"Why, I had one of those prison bars in position, and unfortunately leaned too hard on the same," Lub explained.
"The pesky thing betrayed your confidence, did it?" demanded Ethan.
"Just about how it happened," the other continued, frankly. "I must have tried to save myself, more through intuition than because I had time to think about it. Anyway I got doubled up somehow; and that's the reason I stuck in the flue. One thing I'm glad of, and that is you fellows were close by, and could hear me yelp. If you'd gone off I might have had to stay there all afternoon; and let me tell you it would have been no joke."
"Ready to give it up as a bad job, are you, Lub?" questioned X-Ray.
"What, me quit for a little thing like that?" burst out the other; "I should hope I was a better stayer than that, boys. It only makes me clinch my teeth, and resolve to conquer or die."