e
had escaped.

"Here, now, you two lay hold of the rope and pull me up!" shouted
Bigley. "I want to come too."

We took hold of the rope and tightened it, and there was a severe course
of tugging for a few minutes before we slackened our efforts, and sat
down and laughed, for we might as well have tried to drag up any of the
ton-weight stones as Bigley.

"Oh, I say," he cried; "you don't half pull. I want to come up."

"Then you must climb as we pull," I said, and in obedience to my advice
he fastened the rope round his waist, and tried to climb as we hauled,
with the result that after a few minutes' scuffling and rasping on the
rock poor Bigley was sitting down rubbing himself softly, and looking up
at us with a very doleful expression of countenance.

"You can't get up, Big; you're too heavy," cried Bob, who was now in the
best of tempers. "Here, let's look round, Sep."

That did not take long, for there were only a few square feet of surface
to traverse. We were up at the top, and could see a long way round; but
then so we could fifteen or twenty feet below, and at the end of five
minutes we both were of the same way of thinking--that the principal
satisfaction in getting up to the summit of a rock or mountain was in
being able to say that you had mastered a difficulty.

Bob thoroughly expressed my feelings when, after amusing himself for a
few minutes by throwing dry cushions of moss down at Bigley, he
exclaimed:

"Well, what's the good of stopping here? Come on down again!"

"I'm ready," I said, "only I wish old Big had come up too."

"I don't," said Bob; "what's the good of wishing. I'm not going to make
my hands sore with tugging. He had no business to grow so fat."

"I should like to come up," cried Bigley dolefully.

"Ah, well, you can't!" shouted back Bob. "Serves you right pretending
to be a man when you're only a boy."

"I can't help it," replied Bigley with a sigh.

"Let's have one more try to have him up," I cried.

"Sha'n't. What's the good? I don't see any fun in trying to do what
you can't."

"Never mind: old Big will like it," I said. "Come on."

Bob reluctantly took hold of the rope, and after giving a bit of advice
to our companion, he made another desperate struggle while we pulled,
but the only result was that we all grew exceedingly hot and sticky, and
as Bigley stood below, red-faced and panting with his efforts, Bob put
an end to the project by sliding down the r