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 *ment's silence was broken by a hail from Laurie.

"No good, you fellows! The rope's worked into a crevice of the rock and is jammed there. I'll have to climb it myself. Make your end fast around something and stand by to give me a hand—if I make it!"

Bob silently questioned Ned, and the latter nodded again. "Let him try," he said huskily. "If he can't—"

"Oh, wait, wait!" cried Polly. "We're—we're perfect idiots! He doesn't have to do that, Ned! He can walk along that ledge, and we can hold the rope—"

"But it isn't long enough," Bob expostulated.

"Not down," said Polly impatiently; "up!"

"Up? By Jove, that's so! See what she means, Ned? Here, let's get this tied to the tree!" A moment later Bob was at the edge, his eager gaze following the narrow ledge as it ascended at Laurie's right. Scarcely twenty feet beyond, it ended at a perpendicular fissure hardly four feet below the top. Gleefully he made known the discovery to Laurie, and the latter, stretched like a trussed fowl against the rock, his toes still just touching the shelf, grunted.