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 "Wish I could stand on my heels for a while," said Laurie. "My toes are trying to dance. Where's Ned gone for the rope?"

"To the quarry, he said," Polly replied. "If Bob and I made a sort of rope of our clothes, Laurie, wouldn't it be better than a pole?"

"Don't believe so. I wouldn't feel awfully easy in my mind if I trusted to that sort of rope. Anyway, I don't intend to have you make rags of your new dress!"

"Oh, Laurie, as if a new dress mattered!" exclaimed Polly. "I do wish it wasn't so thin, though. Here comes Bob."

Bob brought the dead trunk of a young black birch about five inches thick at the butt where, by hacking with his knife and twisting, he had managed to sever it. Now he slashed the larger branches away. "Good thing it's dried out," he said to Polly. "If it wasn't it would be too heavy to hold. Hope it's long enough!"

"Oh, Bob, I don't believe it is," said Polly anxiously.

"If it isn't I can find one that is."

But it was. When Bob had lowered the smaller end down the cliff at Laurie's right and Laurie