Toward the top, he was literally moving inch by inch, his strength was so far gone. He was just able to get his hands over the rim at last, take a good grip, and hold himself there while his strength came back enough to enable him to pull himself up over the top, and get his weight on to his stomach, where he hung for a full minute, with his legs dangling back into the crack.
Finally he pulled them up, too, and found himself on a tiny little space, hardly large enough to sit on, with the rocks and the lake 175 feet below him. It was like sitting on top of a church spire. Trembling with muscular exhaustion as he was, he didn’t care to sit there long. In fact, he took one good look down, had a feeling as if his stomach turned a flipflop, drew up half of the rope and turned it around the top of the spire, and then grasping both strands of the doubled rope, came sliding down the chimney.
His uncle gave him a pat on the shoulder.
“Good work,” was all he said, but Bennie knew then that he had really done something.
“Why didn’t you wait for us?” Spider demanded.
“Isn’t room on top for more’n one at a time,” Bennie replied. “Go on up and see what it’s like. Keep hold of both strands of the rope, though. How long did it take me?”
“About an hour and twenty minutes,” said Mr. Stone.
“Is that all?” said Bennie. “I felt as if it was day after tomorrow before I got there.”
And he sat down wearily.
Meanwhile Spider was hauling himself up on the doubled rope. He didn’t stay up much longer than Bennie, though.