“You’ll see,” his brother said with assurance, and began to climb the hay ladder into the top loft of the building. Roger ran out just in time to see Joe open the small door up in the peak of the stable roof. There were water-troughs all around the roof, for the cattle were supplied with drinking water from cisterns built under the ground. A leader ran down each corner of the stable, and one of these was within reach of Joe Dale’s hands when he swung himself out upon the door he had opened. Nobody, except the boys, were about the stable, and this end of the building could not be seen from the house. Joe had once before performed a similar trick. He had swung from the door to the leader-pipe and swarmed down to the ground. “Look out you don’t tumble, Joe,” advised the eager Roger. But he had no idea that Joe would do so. The elder brother was a hero in the sight of the younger lad. Joe’s skill and strength did not fail him now. He caught the leader, then the water-trough itself, and so scrambled upon the roof. But at his last kick some fastening holding the leader-pipe gave way and the top of it swung out from the corner of the stable. “Oh, cricky!” yelled Roger. “Lucky you got up there, Joe. That pipe’s busted. How’ll you get down?” “Never mind that,” grunted Joe, somewhat breathless, scrambling up the roof to the ridgepole. “We’ll see about that later.” The boy reached the ridge and straddled it. There he got his breath and then hitched along toward the cooing pigeon. It was not frightened by him, but it certainly was lame and exhausted. Joe picked it up in his hand and snuggled it into the breast of his sweater. “But how are you ever going to get down, Joe Dale?” shrilled Roger, from the ground. The question was a poser, as Joe very soon found out. That particular leader had been the only one on the stable that he could reach with any measure of safety; and now it hung out a couple of feet from the side of the building and Joe would not have dared trust his weight upon it, even could he have reached it. “What are you going to do?” again wailed the smaller lad. “Aw, cheese it, Roger! don’t be bawling,” advised Joe from the roof. “Go and get a ladder.” “There isn’t any long enough to reach up there—you know that,” said Roger. Neither he nor Joe observed the fact that, even had there been a ladder, the smaller boy could not have raised it into place so that Joe could have descended upon it. None of the men working on the place was at hand. Ned and Nat were off on some errand in their car. Secretly, Roger was panic stricken and might have run for Dorothy, for she was still his refuge in all troubles. But Joe was older—and thought himself wiser. “We’ve just got to find a ladder—_you’ve_ got to find it, Roger. I can’t sit up here a-straddle of this old roof all day. It’s co-o-old!”