“Well, so am I,” retorted Jo. “I’ll get her out, you see if I don’t. Then you’ll know I’m trustable, won’t you? You think I’m mean and thieving and not worth a penny, and I expect you’re right. But I can do some things you can’t, and if you want this thing, I’ll do it for you.”

“How?” said Julian, astonished and disbelieving.

Jo sat down again.

“You saw that tower, didn’t you?” she began. “Well, it’s a big one, so I reckon there’s more than one room in it — and if I can get into the room next to George’s I could undo her door and set her free.”

“And how do you think you’re going to get into the room next to hers?” said Dick, scornfully.

“Climb up the wall, of course,” said Jo. “It’s set thick with ivy. I’ve often climbed up walls like that.”

The boys looked at her. “Were you the Face at the Window by any chance?” said Julian, remembering Anne’s fright. “I bet you were. You’re like a monkey, climbing and darting about. But you can’t climb up that great high wall, so don’t think it. You’d fall and be killed. We couldn’t let you.”

“Pooh!” said Jo, with great scorn. “Fall off a wall like that! I’ve climbed up a wall without any ivy at all! There’s always holes and cracks to hold on to. That one would be easy!”

Julian was quite dumbfounded to think that Jo really meant all this. Dick remembered that Jo’s father was an acrobat. Perhaps that kind of thing was in the family.

“You just ought to see me on a tight-rope,” said Jo earnestly. “I can dance on it — and I never have a safety-net underneath — that’s baby-play! Well, I’m going.”

Without another word she climbed the steep steps lightly as a goat and stood poised in the archway of the door. All was quiet. Like a squirrel she leapt and bounded over the courtyard and came to the foot of the ivy-covered tower. Julian and Dick were now at the doorway that led into the yard, watching her.

“She’ll be killed,” said Julian.

“Talk about pluck!” said Dick. “I never saw such a kid in my life. There she goes — just like a monkey.”

And, sure enough, up the ivy went Jo, climbing lightly and steadily. Her hands reached out and tested each ivy-stem before she threw her weight on it, and her feet tried each one, too, before she stood on it.

Once she slipped when an ivy-stem came away from the wall. Julian and Dick watched, their hearts in their mouths. But Jo merely clutched at another piece of stem and steadied herself once. Then up she went again.

Up and up. Past the first storey, past the second, and up to the third. Only one more now and she would be up to the topmost one. She seemed very small as she neared the top.