His failures were discouraging, to say the least. The worst of it all was that there did not seem to be any hope that, even given time, he could manage to accomplish the task, unless he took out his knife and deliberately hacked notches in the sides of his prison upon which he could rest his toes.
That would take hours of time; and meanwhile what of Sandy?
"I'll give it another try," he muttered, loth to confess himself beaten, "and then, if I fail to make it, something else must be done, for out of this I'm going to get, by hook or by crook!"
This time he took particular pains in his movements. Inch by inch he kept advancing by that shuffling movement that always pushed his figure away from the ground.
Hope even began to find a lodgment in his breast, for the bottom of the aperture seemed now within a foot of his reach, and, once let him get a grip on that, he could count the battle won.
Then again there came a miscalculation, a trifling slip that upset his gravity, and once more poor Bob went plunging down to the bottom, worse off than ever.
He actually grunted and groaned as he sat there, feeling to see if he had received any more damage than a few bruises from this heavy fall.
And, strange to say, his back seemed to trouble him more than any other part of his body.
"Feels as if I had started to roast along my spine," he said, as he found his buckskin tunic exceedingly hot when he laid a hand on it.
Then, all at once, the truth burst upon him.