"Put it around under your arms," Ned told him; but as though he understood the method of procedure already, the boy in the sand was even in the act of doing this when Ned spoke. "Tie the end around the limb and let me pull myself up, Mister, won't you?" the boy pleaded, as though ashamed of having been caught in a trap, and wishing to do something looking to his own release. This suited Ned just as well, though he meant to have a hand in the pulling process himself and also give Jack a chance. So when he fastened the rope to the limb of the tree he did so at a point midway between himself and Jack. "Get hold and pull!" he said in a low tone to his chum; for already was the boy below straining himself with might and main to effect his own release. It would have proved a much harder task than he contemplated; but the scouts did not mean that he should exhaust himself any further in trying. They managed to get some sort of grip on the rope and then Ned called out cheerily: "Yo heave-o! here he comes! Yo-heave-o! up with him, Jack! Now, once more, all together for a grand pull--yo-heave-o! Hurrah, he's nearly out of the sand!" Five seconds later and the energetic boy was scrambling across the limb of the tree; and in as many minutes all of them had descended to the ground, the end accomplished and nobody much the worse for the experience. "It was a close call for me, that's sure," the boy was saying, as he gravely went around and shook hands with each one of the scouts, not excepting Harry, who had meanwhile come up, leading the three burros; "an' I want you all to know I'm glad that donkey let out his whoop when he did. Why, I might a been all under when you got here; but say, I lost my gun and that makes me mad." Looking at the boy more closely they were struck with the fact that while he did not seem to be more than nine years old, he was dressed like a cow-puncher and had a resolute air. How much of this was assumed in order to impress them with the idea that he had not been alarmed in the least by his recent peril, of course no one could say. Ned was wondering how the boy, brought up undoubtedly amidst such perils and on the lookout for danger all the while, could have fallen into such a silly little trap as this. "What were you doing in the stream that you stood there and let the sand suck you in?" he asked as he proceeded to help the boy scrape himself off so as to appear more presentable.