Bart made no reply. That very fear was in his own mind. In that suspense he could say nothing. At last they had mounted as high as the place where the rope had broken. The end hung here suspended most tantalizingly. O, what joy it would have been for them had it been the rope alone which had thus broken,--if the beam had only continued sound; but now that rope was useless, and they dared not touch it for fear lest even a touch might bring down upon their heads the beam that hung there impending over them. Fortunately they were able to ascend yet higher, for still above them the log casing had been started asunder, and still they found themselves able to grasp places of support. The staying had certainly undergone a universal disintegration, and nothing but its great compactness had prevented it from falling in ruin over their heads, and burying them alive. It was with amazement and consternation that they recognized their work, and these feelings would have overwhelmed them had they not found the result, after all, so fortunate for themselves. The risk had passed away. For the present, at least, they were receiving the benefit. The fear which Pat had expressed, and which Bart had felt without expressing, that the ascent was too good a thing to last, was at length proved to be only too well founded. After they had climbed some distance farther, they found their ascent brought to an abrupt termination. For here there was a kind of separation between the lower casing and the upper; a log bulged forward about a foot, and above this there was a gap in the casing about two feet in height which shoved the earth behind, a kind of clay, and in this there was a cavity caused by the falling of the casing. Above this the casing had held firm, but unfortunately they had not reached the planks. They were the same round logs which rose above them, and which would be as difficult to scale from this point as they had proved from below. Upon this ledge, formed by the bulging logs, they clambered, and seated themselves, dejected at the termination of their ascent, yet relieved slightly by the chance which was now afforded of some rest and breathing space. Here they sat, and looked up. “Sure an it’s hard, so it is,” said Pat, “to find an ind to it just here, whin, if we’d only been able to climb twinty or thirty feet further, we’d have got to the planks, an been all safe.” “Yes,” said Bart, looking up, “there are the planks; and they’re not more than thirty feet above us at the farthest.” “An yit they’re as much out of our raich as though they were a hundred, so they are.” “I’d rather have the thirty feet, at any rate,” said Bart. “Come now; can’t we manage to get farther up.” “Nivir a farther,” said Pat. “We’ve got to the ind of our journey.”