A DARING RESCUE
Lige thrust the excited boy to one side. Running to the edge of the
cliff, he leaned over and listened intently.
A moment more and he too caught the plaintive cry for help from below.
It was the first time thus far on the journey that Lige Thomas had
manifested the slightest sign of excitement. Just now, however, there
could be no doubt at all that he was intensely agitated.
"Keep back! Keep back!" he shouted, as the boys and Professor Zepplin
began crowding near the masked edge of the cliff. "You'll all be over
if you don't have a care. We've got trouble enough on our hands
without having the rest of you jump into it."
"What is it?" demanded the Professor breathlessly.
"It's Master Walt," snapped the guide. "Stand still. Don't move an
inch. I'm going back for a torch," he commanded, leaping by them on
his way to the camp fire.
"Where--is--he?" stammered the Professor, not observing that the
guide had left them.
"Down there, sir," explained Tad, pointing to the ledge of rock over
which Walter had fallen.
"I know--I know--but----"
"I heard him call. Walt's alive! Walt's alive! But I don't know how we
are going to get him."
The shout of joy that had framed itself on the lips of Ned Rector and
Stacy Brown died out in an indistinct murmur.
"Is it possible! What are we going to do, Thomas--how are we to
rescue the boy?"
Lige Thomas made no reply to the question as he ran past them, and,
dropping down, leaned over the cliff, holding the torch he had brought
far out ahead of him.
"See anything?" asked Tad tremulously, creeping to his side.
"Looks like a clump of bushes down there. But I ain't sure. Can you
make it out?"
"No. All I can see is rocks and shadows. Where is it that you think
you see bushes?"
"Over there to the right, just near the edge of the light space made
by the torch light," answered the guide.
"Yes," agreed Tad, "that does look like bushes. I'll call to Walter
and tell him we are coming. Hey, Walter! Where are you?"
"H--e--r--e," was the faint response. "All right, old man. Stick
tight and don't get scared. We'll have you out of that in no time."
"Don't move around. Lie perfectly still," warned the guide. "Are you
hurt?"
To this question Walter made some reply that was unintelligible to
them.
"Now, what are we going to do, I'd like to know?" asked Ned.
"I don't know," answered Lige, frowning thoughtfully. "It's a tough
job. If I had a couple of mountaineers who knew their business, we'd
stand a better chance of pulling him up."
"Why not get a rope and let it down to him," suggested Tad.
"Yes, that's the only way we can do it. Run over to the cook tent and
tell Jose to give you those rawhide lariats that he will find behind
his bunk. Hurry!"
Tad was off almost before the words were out of the mouth of the
guide, and in the briefest possible time came racing back with the
leather coils, which he tossed to Lige before reaching him, that there
might not be even a second's delay.
The mountaineer quickly formed a loop in one end of the rope, making
it large enough to permit of its slipping over the shoulders of a
man. This he dropped over the brink, after splicing two lariats
together, and directing Ned Rector to make the other end fast about
the trunk of a tree by giving it a couple of hitches.
"Hello, down there! Let me know when the rope reaches you. Can you
slip it over your shoulders and under your arms?" called the guide.
There was no response.
"I say, down there!" shouted Lige.
"That's funny," wondered Tad. "H-e-l-l-o-o-o-o, Walt!"
But not a sound came up from the black depths in answer to the boy's
hail. They gazed at each other in perplexity.
"Has--he---gone?" asked the Professor weakly.
"No. We should have heard him if he had," answered Lige. "If I could
see him I'd lasso him and haul him up. But I don't dare try it. Then
again, these roots on a wall of rock ain't any too strong usually. I
don't dare try any experiments."
"What do you think has happened to him?" asked Tad in a troubled
voice.
"Fainted, probably. He ain't very strong, you know. And that tumble's
enough to knock the sense out of a full grown man. Ain't no use to
expect him to hook himself onto the line, even if he does wake up,"
decided the guide with emphasis, beginning to haul up the lariat,
which he coiled neatly on the rock in front of him.
"Then what are we going to do? We've got to get Walt up here, even if
I have to jump over after him," said Tad firmly.
"Right you are, young man. But talking won't do it. Something else
besides saying you're going to will be necessary."
"What would you suggest!"
"One of us must go down there," was the guide's startling
announcement. "That's the only way we can reach him," explained Lige,
dangling the loop of the lariat in his hands as he looked from one to
the other.
"D--do--down in that dark place? Oh!" exclaimed Chunky.
"In that case, you will have to go yourself, Thomas," decided the
Professor sharply. "I could not think of allowing any of my charges to
take so terrible a risk, and----"
"Let me go, Mr. Thomas," interrupted Ned Rector, stepping forward,
with almost a challenge in his eyes.
"No; I am the lighter of the two," urged Tad. "I am the one to go
after Walt, if anyone has to. I'll go down, Mr. Thomas."
"Master Tad is right," decided the guide, gazing at the two boys
approvingly. "It will be better for him to go, if he will----"
"And he most certainly will," interrupted Tad, advancing a step.
"I protest!" shouted the Professor. "You yourself should go, Lige. You
are----"
"I am needed right here, sir," replied the guide, shortly. "You'd have
both of us at the bottom if I left it to you to take care of this
end."
"I'm ready, sir when you are," reminded Tad.
The guide, without further delay, and giving no heed to Professor
Zepplin's nervous protests, slipped the noose over Tad's shoulders,
and, drawing it down and up under his arms, secured the knot so that
the loop might not tighten under the weight of the boy's body.
"Now, be very careful. Make no sudden moves. And, if you meet with
anything unlooked for, let me know at once. You know, you will have to
stay down there while we are drawing the boy up. But, before removing
the rope from your own body, make sure that you are safe. If you find
the support too weak to bear your weight, let me know. I'll send down
another rope to which you can tie yourself until we get Master Walter
to the top. Be sure to fasten him securely to the loop before you give
the signal to haul up," warned the guide. "Here, put my gun in your
pocket."
"I understand."
"Are you ready?"
"Yes."
Tad tossed away his sombrero and sat down on a shelf of rock at the
edge of the cliff, his feet dangling over.
The lad's face was pale, the lines on it standing out in sharp ridges;
but not by so much as the flicker of an eyelid did he betray the
slightest nervousness. Yet Tad Butler realized fully the perilous
nature of his undertaking, and that the least mistake on his part or
on the part of those above him might mean a sudden end to his earthly
ambitions.
Lige shortened the hitch about the tree, until the line drew
taut. After winding the end tightly about his own arm, he handed a
lighted torch to Tad.
It was a trying moment for all of them, and naturally more so for the
boy who was about to descend into the unknown depths of the mountain
canyou.
"Right!" announced the guide in a reassuring voice.
Tad made no reply, but, turning so that he faced them, let himself
carefully over the ledge, his right hand holding the torch, his left
firmly gripping the ledge so that there might be no jolt on the line
by a too sudden stepping-off.
"Good!" approved Lige encouragingly, beginning to let the rawhide slip
slowly around the trunk of the tree. As he did so, Tad felt himself
gradually sinking into the sombre depths.
He tilted his head to look up. The movement sent his body swaying
giddily from side to side.
Cautiously placing a hand against the rocks to steady himself, Tad
wisely concluded that hereafter it would not pay to be too curious.
"Hold a torch over the edge of the cliff, Master Ned," directed the
guide. "Better lie down so you, too, don't take a notion to fall
off. Keep your eyes shut till I tell you to open them."
Slowly, but steadily, the slender line was paid out, amid a tense
silence on the part of the little group at the top of the
canyou. After what seemed to them hours, a sharp call from the
depths reached their ears.
Lige quickly made fast the line to a tree.
"Yes? Got him?" he answered, leaning over the cliff.
"I see him," called Tad, his voice sounding hollow and unnatural to
those above. "He's so far to the right of me that I can't reach
him. Will it be all right for me to swing myself?"
"Where is he?"
"Lodged in the branches of a pinyon tree, I think it is. But he
doesn't answer me."
"Wait a minute," cautioned the mountaineer.
Lige searched until he found a limb some three inches in diameter, and
this he placed under the rope so as to relieve the strain of the rock
upon it, that there might be no danger of the leather being sawed in
two by contact with the ledge.
"All right. Now try it."
The creaking of the rawhide told them that Tad Butler was swaying from
side to side, fifty feet below them, at the end of a slender
line. Lige, leaning over the brink, was able to follow the boy's
movements by the aid of the thin arc of light made by the torch in
Tad's hand.
At last, the thread of light contracted into a point, and the watching
guide knew that the courageous boy had finally reached the pinyon
tree.
Then followed a long period of suspense. But from the cautious
movements of the light far below them, the guide understood that the
lad was at work carrying out his part of the task of rescue to the
best of his ability.
"Why doesn't he say something?" cried the Professor, unable to
restrain his impatience longer, his overwrought nerves almost at the
breaking point.
"Keep still! Don't bother him. The boy's doing the best he can. Mebby
you think he's having some sort of a picnic down there, eh?" glared
Lige.
"A--l--l right!"
Tad's voice, now strong and clear, rose from the depths of the canyou.
"Shall we haul up?" asked Lige, making a megaphone of his hands.
"Yes; haul away. Tell them Walt's all right. He can talk now," was
the answer that carried with it such a note of gladness that Ned and
Stacy were unable to resist a shout of joy.
"Lend a hand here," commanded Lige, taking firm hold of the line, and
stepping to the edge that he might command both ends of the
operation. "Are you all safe down there, Tad?"
"Sure thing!" answered the boy.
Very slowly, restraining their inclination to haul the rope in with
all speed only because the warning eyes of the guide were upon them,
the two boys, assisted by Professor Zepplin, began hoisting Walter
Perkins toward the top.
In a few moments the sinewy hands of the guide gripped Walter by an
arm and dragged him safely to the table rock.
Walter had fully regained consciousness by this time, and a brief
examination showed that he had sustained no serious injury, he having
struck on the yielding branches of the pinyon, which broke his fall
and saved his life. Beyond sundry bruises, a black eye and a thin
crimson line on the right cheek where a branch had raked it, Walter
Perkins was practically unharmed after his perilous experience.
But it was a trying moment for Tad Butler, down there alone in the
branches of the pinyon tree, with fifty feet of nothingness beneath
him and a sheer wall that extended an equal distance above him.
Nor was his sense of security increased when, in shifting his
position, the torch fell from his grasp, the fagots scattering as they
slipped down between the limbs of the tree and whirling in
ever-diminishing circles until finally he heard them clatter on the
rocks below.
The boy could not repress a shudder. Closing his eyes, he clung to the
slender support with grim courage until a hail from above told him
that the rawhide loop was rapidly squirming down toward him.
This time Lige had allowed for his mistaken reckoning when Tad had
first descended, and the boy grasped eagerly at the leather as he felt
it gently slap against his cheek.
A few moments more, and he, too, had been hauled safely to the top,
amid the wild cheers of his companions and the congratulations of the
guide and Professor Zepplin.