He felt in his pocket for his jackknife, drew it out and opened it.  Then with his left hand he succeeded, after several attempts, in lifting himself sufficiently to relieve the strain of his body, and with the jackknife in his right hand cut the line where it circled his body below the arms.

Hanging now by his left hand he deliberately and coolly closed the knife by pushing the back of the blade against his leg, and restored it to his pocket.  This done he grasped the line with his right hand just above the bowline knot, where he had a firm hold, slipped his other hand down to it, and began swinging in toward the cliff and out over the waves, and then on an outward swing, let go.  Down he went, well away from the rocks, feet first into the deep water, and, a moment later, appearing on the surface, swam to the skiff, grasped it astern, and climbed aboard, shivering from his icy bath.

“Oh, Bobby, you’re a wonder!” exclaimed Jimmy.  “I never would have thought of that way of your getting off that line!”

“’Twasn’t anything,” declared Bobby, deprecatingly, as he seated himself and picked up his oars.  “Now let’s pull back where we can put on a fire.  I’m freezing cold.”

“I was scared when I found I couldn’t pull you up,” said Jimmy, as they rowed back to the gully.  “Wasn’t you?”

“No, I wasn’t scared,” boasted Bobby.  “I was just getting cold and numb.  The worst of it is I had to drop my bag with all the eggs I picked off the cliff.  I had some dandies, too!  Two of them were the prettiest eggs I ever saw—­real small at one end and big at the other, and all colored and marked and spotted up.  They were different from any eggs I ever saw, too.”

“Did you find ’em together, or separate?”

“Found ’em separate, on different ledges.”

“I know what they were!  They were murre eggs.  Murre eggs are different from any other kind.  They’ve got more colors and marks on ’em.  Partner found some last year.”

“There were some murres down on the water, but I never thought they’d go up to lay their eggs in places like that.  The eggs were right on the bare rock, and weren’t in a nest at all, and if it wasn’t for their shape they’d have rolled off.”

“It’s a strange place for any bird to leave eggs, but that’s where the kittiwakes, auks and swimmers and some of the gulls and lots of birds make nests and lay eggs.  I suppose it’s so as to make it hard to find them when folks go egging.  Partner tells me lots, and I ask lots of questions, because he says the more I know about the way birds and animals live and the things they do, the better I’ll be able to hunt and take care of myself.”

In spite of his exertion at the oars, Bobby’s teeth were chattering when they landed at the place where they had cooked their dinner.  But it was not long before Jimmy had a roaring fire and the kettle over for some hot tea, and then, leaving Bobby to dry his clothes, Jimmy climbed up again over the cliff to recover Abel’s harpoon line, which was much too valuable to be left behind.