CHAPTER XVII--EVE TAKES A RISK
"Now, Nell!" declared Mother Wit, emphatically, "there isn't the leastuse in your crying. Tears will not get us down from this tower."
"You--you can be just as--as brave as you want to be," sobbed NellieAgnew. "I--want--to--go--home!"
"For goodness-gracious sake! Who doesn't?" snapped Bobby. "But, just asLaura says, weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth won't help us thetiniest bit!"
"What will help us, I'd like to know?" grumbled Jess Morse.
"Put on your thinking cap, Mother Wit," cried Bobby.
"Dear me!" said Eve, drawing in her head. "It _is_ a long way from theground--and that's a fact."
"It's a good, long jump," chuckled Bobby.
"Let's write calls for help on pieces of paper and drop them down,"suggested Laura.
"With the wind blowing the way it is, the papers would fly up, insteadof down," scoffed her chum.
"We'll weight 'em," said Laura.
"It would be like throwing over a bottle into the sea, telling how weare cast away on a desert island," said Bobby. "And this is worse thanany desert island I ever heard about. Say, girls! how do you suppose ourboots will taste?"
"What nonsense!" said Nellie, wiping her eyes. "We sha'n't be hungryenough to begin on our shoes for a long time yet. But how scared ourfolks will be when we don't come home to supper."
"And the sun's going down," mourned Jess.
"Why, girls," said Laura, thoughtfully, "it will be after dark beforeour folks begin to miss us much. And then they won't see us up here,that's sure!"
"I'm going to climb out of one of these windows and wave something,"cried her chum. "Surely somebody will see me."
"And think you're just playing up here," commented Nellie, who was fastlosing all hope.
"My goodness!" exclaimed Jess. "They must think, then, that I haveselected a crazy place to play in," and she removed her jacket and beganto crawl out through one of the windows of the tower.
"Be careful, dear!" warned Laura.
"Yes, do look out where you step," said Bobby, grabbing Jess's skirtwith a firm grip. "It's a long way down to the street."
"If we only had some means of making a light up here," said Laura, in aworried tone. "Then, after dark, people _would_ be attracted by ourplight."
"I haven't a match--have you?" demanded Bobby.
"Of course not. Girls never do carry useful things in their pockets.Unless _you_ do, Bobby."
"I've got about everything in my pocket but a match," declared thesmaller girl.
"I have a good mind to drop this old coat," called Jess, from outside.
"And it would catch on something half-way down the tower, perhaps, andthen you'd never see it again," Bobby said.
"Well, what _shall_ we do?" demanded Jess, wriggling back into the towerroom and dragging her jacket after her. "Nobody will even look up. Iexpect we'd look like pigeons up here to them."
"Oh, dear!" gasped Bobby. "I do wish some pigeons _would_ fly up here.They do sometimes, you know."
"What good would they do us?" demanded Nellie.
"Couldn't we kill and eat them?" replied Bobby. "Nothing like havingbright ideas when you are cast away on a desert tower."
"Your ideas may be bright enough," laughed Laura; "but I wouldn't careto eat pigeons raw."
"You may be glad to before we get down from here," returned Bobby,gloomily.
"Now that's ridiculous," said Mother Wit, briskly. "Don't _you_ begin tolose heart, Miss Hargrew."
"I've as good a right as the next one," growled Bobby.
"Speaking of pigeons," observed Jess, ruminatively, "Chet's carrierssometimes come up here when he lets them out. I've seen them."
"My goodness me!" ejaculated Mother Wit. "Wouldn't that be fine?"
"Wouldn't what be fine?" queried Nellie, wiping her eyes.
"If some of Chet's carriers would just fly up here. They know me. I'vehandled them lots of times. And we might send a note back telling Chetwhere we are."
"And he'd find it tied under the pigeon's wing in about a week," scoffedBobby.
"What _are_ we going to do, girls?" demanded Nellie. "And it's chilly uphere, too."
Jess pulled on her jacket again. "We can go down on the stairway, whereit is warmer," she said.
"It is very annoying," wailed the doctor's daughter, "to have you girlstake the matter so calmly. Why, the whole town will be searching for usby midnight."
"I hope so!" ejaculated Bobby.
"Let's all shout together. Somebody ought to hear us," Eve said.
"That is impossible," objected Jess. "Sound doesn't traveldownward--much. Not when there is a sharp wind blowing, as it is now.It's a good deal farther to the ground than it appears."
"That's like what our old girl, Nora, said about the distance toLiverpool. When she came to us, she came direct from the immigrantship," laughed Bobby. "And she was telling about the weary way acrossthe 'say.' 'How far is it, Nora?' one of the children asked her.
"'It's fower thousan' mile,' declared Nora, 'to Liverpool.'
"But the kiddies wouldn't have that. They looked it up in the geography,and told her she was wrong--it was only three thousand.
"'Sure, that's flatways,' says Nora. 'But I been over it, an' wid theups an' the downs, sure I _know_ 'tis another thousand!"
"Dear me, Bobby," complained Nellie. "I believe you'd joke if you weregoing to be hanged!"
"Do you think so?" asked Bobby, seriously. "Much obliged. That's a goodreputation to have, whether I deserve it or not."
"Good for you, Bobs!" laughed Jess. "You keep still, old croaker!" sheadded, shaking Nellie Agnew. "Let's look on the cheerful side of it.Every cloud has a silver lining."
"If you can see any silver lining to _this_ cloud, I'd like you to showit to me, Miss!" exclaimed Nellie, with some warmth.
Eve was going from window to window, thrusting her head and shouldersout of each, and examining the sides of the tower carefully. Laura askedwhat she was doing.
"Why, dear, on this side is the roof of the school building," said Eve,thoughtfully. "It isn't so far below us."
"It's much too far for us to jump," returned Mother Wit.
"True," said Eve, smiling. "But see here."
"I can't climb out of the same window you are at," complained Laura.
"Go to the next one, then, and I'll point it out to you."
Laura did so. Sitting sideways on the sills the girls could thrust theupper part of their bodies out and obtain an unobstructed view of thisentire wall of the tower.
"See that wire?" exclaimed Eve, eagerly.
Just below the level of the windows which pierced the upper story of thetower a heavy stay-wire was fastened to a staple set in the masonry. Atsome time the school building had been dressed with flags and buntingand this heavy wire had never been removed. It was fastened at the otherend to a ring in the roof of the main building.
"I see it, Evangeline," admitted Mother Wit, with something like fear inher voice. "You wouldn't do it!"
"I believe I can," declared the country girl.
"Why--why--it would take a trapeze performer!"
"Well, Mrs. Case has had us working on the ladders and the parallel barsuntil we ought to be pretty fair on a trapeze," said Eve, laughing alittle.
"Oh, Eve! I wouldn't try it," cried Laura.
"You see," said the other, steadily, "if I can get out of the windowhere, and two of you can steady me, I can drop down upon that wire----"
"But suppose you should fall to the roof!"
"I won't fall. That is not what I am aiming to do, at least."
"It is too reckless a thing to try," cried Laura.
"Now, wait. Nobody will see us up here. If we have to stay all nightsome of the girls will be sick. You know that. Now, if I can once get tothat wire, I know I can work my way down it to the roof."
"You'll slide--and cut your hands all to pieces."
"No, I won't. I've a pair of thick gloves in my
pocket," declared Eve."I am going to try it, Mother Wit."
"Oh, I don't believe you had better!"
Eve slid back into the tower-room, Laura following her. The bigger girlslipped out of her coat and took off her hat immediately.
"Hullo!" said Bobby. "Don't you want your slippers, too? You're in forthe night, are you?"
But Eve was finding her gloves and these she drew on. Even Nellie beganto get interested then.
"What _are_ you going to do now?" she cried.
Laura explained quickly. Nellie began to cry again, and even Bobbylooked troubled.
"It isn't worth the risk, is it?" she asked. "Somebody will find us sometime."
"That's just it," Eve returned. "We don't know when that _some time_will be. I can slide down that wire, get in by the roof opening, andunlock this door that shuts us up here. Of course, the key will be inthe lock. If it isn't, and there is nobody in the building, I cantelephone for help."
"Say, that's great!" spoke Jess. "If you can only do it safely, Eve."
"Oh, I'll do it," declared the country girl, confidently, and the nextmoment she began climbing out through the window nearest to the wire.
Laura and Jess held her around the waist; then, as she slid out, fartherand farther, they clung to her shoulders. But Eve had to leave her armsfree and suddenly she panted:
"Let me go! I've got to drop and grab the wire. That's the only way."
Laura and her chum looked at each other in doubt and fear. It did seemas though, if they let go of the girl, she must fall to the foot of thetower!
The Girls of Central High on Track and Field Page 17