“Where’d we get the ladders?” asked Dan scornfully. “Now, how would ‘Camp Chicora, ’04’ look about twenty feet above their old letters?” “Fine, but we can’t get it there, can we?” “Sure! Get some paint and a good big brush, and about fifty feet of rope.” Bob whistled. “You’re a wonder, Dan!” he said softly. “I choose to do the painting!” “Like thunder! Whose idea was it?” “Yours, but I weigh less than you do, Dan.” “That doesn’t matter. We’ll get rope that’ll hold three times my weight.” “Do you think you can do it?” asked Bob, looking upward at the smooth face of the rock. “Course I can do it; any fellow could. Hello!” He stumbled over the rocks and picked up a paint-brush, very sticky with vermilion paint. “Just the thing,” he chuckled. “We won’t have to buy one. Kind of them to leave it, eh? And here’s the can over here. Think we’ll want that?” “I don’t believe so, but you might fetch it out in case we do.” Dan did so, and carried can and brush down through the bushes to the edge of the meadow and there hid them. Then, with many a backward look at the cliff, they made their way to the road, and so to the village, arranging ways and means as they went. “We’ll go along the road by the river and strike up the mountain from there, keeping along this side. I’ll make a seat out of a piece of board, like a swing, you know, and hitch that to the end of the rope. Then all you fellows will have to do is to lower me down.” “That’s all right; but how will you move along from left to right when you’re down there?” Dan considered this problem for a minute in silence; then he was forced to own himself stuck. “Of course, you can pull me up and move the rope, and then let me down again, but that will take a month of Sundays.” Nevertheless, no better solution of the problem presented itself, and Dan reckoned that he could paint three letters from each position, necessitating but five changes. “I guess we’d better not tell the fellows about it,” said Bob. “If we do, it’s sure to get out and Clint will hear of it. If he does, it’s all over.” “That’s so. We’ll just say that we’re trying to think up a way to do it. And this afternoon some of us had better go to Warder and get a gallon can of nice blue paint. Then to-morrow morning we can get to work before any one knows anything about it.” “We’ll have to have Nelson and Tom, though.” “Sure! We couldn’t do it without them. It will take a couple of you to hold the rope. You’ll have to snub it around a tree, or something, you know. I guess you and I’d better go to Warder, because we’ll have to buy the rope too, and I want to have a hand in that; I feel a sort of interest in that rope.” “I guess you do,” Bob answered with a smile. “But I don’t think I can go with you on account of practise. Take Nelson.” “All right. Who’s got any money? I’ve drawn my allowance for next week already.” “I guess I’ve got enough. I suppose we’ll have to stand the thing between us.”