VULTURE CLIFF
Perhaps it was because these three good scouts were after all just boys
that they began to be conscious of certain real or imagined perils in
their big adventure. They talked over among themselves what they were
likely to be expected to do and they began to be a little concerned
about the secrecy which characterized the expedition. Westy had talked
of doing something _big_, of being a scout in the large and adventurous
sense. And he had felt quite ashamed of scouting as he knew it, when he
allowed himself to view it through the sophisticated gaze of Mr. Wilde.
He began to wonder now whether all his big talk, or rather the
expression of his big hopes, was not going to plunge him and his
companions into perils which he had not anticipated. Poor Westy, he was
not afraid; he was only young and unseasoned. Mr. Wilde, on the other
hand, was thoroughly seasoned—oh, very. So thoroughly seasoned that he
did not take these youngsters into his confidence. And thereby ensued
something very like tragedy.
The trail up the mountain was through such a wilderness as the boys had
never seen before. It was late in the evening when they came out into
the open and beheld a panorama far below them and reaching eastward as
far as the eye could see. Mountains, mountains, mountains, rolling one
upon another in stately and magnificent profusion. So they might have
been for thousands, millions, of years without so much as one
contaminating sign of man and all his claptrap works.
How small, how insignificant, would even a city seem in that endless
region of rock and hill. The vast scene was gray in the twilight, for
even the sun was sinking to rest in the more hospitable direction whence
they had come. They were facing the sunless chill of a Rocky Mountain
evening, looking eastward toward the only compass point that was open to
their view. They were almost at the edge of a mighty precipice, a
stupendous gallery of nature. It was as if a mountain had been rent
asunder and half of it taken away to afford a dizzy view of the
amphitheater below.
As the party paused to make their camp within the shelter of the forest
a few hundred feet from the brow of the precipice, Mr. Wilde, his
unlighted cigar tilted like a flag-pole out of his mouth sauntered over
toward the edge with Billy, the camera man, with the practical manner of
a man who might intend to buy real estate in that forsaken region or who
was picking out a suitable spot for a tennis court. The boys, useful at
last, and competent in their task, began pitching their tent and making
ready their little camp. They saw Mr. Wilde and the camera man approach
a little clump of something dark within a very few feet of the
precipice. It was bare and bleak out there, without background or
vegetation, and the two khaki-clad figures seemed bereft of their
individuality; they were just two dark objects examining another object
on the naked, cheerless rock. High in the air above a black speck moved
through the dusk and disappeared among the distant mountains.
“I don’t see how they can get a picture of a thing like that,” said
Warde; “a vulture doing a thing like that, I mean. They wouldn’t get a
picture of me having a scrap with a vulture, not while I’m conscious.”
“You wouldn’t be conscious long,” said Warde.
“The first thing they’ll be able to get a picture of up here,” said Ed
Carlyle, “is me eating some fried bacon, only they’ll have to be quick.
Come on, let’s get the fire started. Where’s the can-opener, anyway?
Chuck that egg powder over here, will you? I’m going to stage a scene
with an omelet.”
“I know one thing,” said Warde, “we’ve been talking about something
_big_. Whatever they want me to do I’m going to do it. I’m not going to
flunk.”
“Believe me, I’m going to do something big,” said Ed. “Watch me! I’m
going to do a bacon sandwich—_a big one_. Where’s the thing to fry this
on anyway? Let’s have a big supper; big is my middle name. You fellows
must be crazy! You don’t suppose Mr. Wilde wants us to risk our young
lives, do you? If I saw a vulture now I’d eat him before he had a chance
to eat me, I’m so hungry. I wish there was some place around here where
we could get an ice cream soda; I’m thirsty too.”
“A raspberry sundae would go good,” said Warde, as he gathered sticks
for their fire. “I remind myself of Pee-Wee Harris. They say vultures
live to be a hundred years old.”
“I bet there’s plenty of them up here all right,” said Westy. “We came
to the right place.”
“I don’t see any now,” said Ed. “I guess they all went to the movies,
hey?”
“It would be mighty risky,” said Westy, “staging a scene like that—a
vulture trying to edge somebody off a cliff. I don’t see how they could
do it.”
“Leave it to Mr. Wilde,” said Warde.
“I’ll be very glad to,” said Ed in his funny way. “You’d think we were
all dead ones talking about vultures. Come on, let’s get ready to eat.
If I had some eggs I’d cook some ham and eggs if I only had some ham. I
wonder how cocoa would go in an omelet?”
“It’ll all go,” said Warde.
“Right the first time as you usually ain’t,” said Ed. “To-morrow we’ll
catch some trout, hey?” Then raising his voice this exuberant member of
the party called aloud, “Hey, Mr. Wilde and Billy, the camera man, come
on home to supper! You’ve just got time to wash your face and hands!”
His voice sounded strange and singularly clear in the stillness and
gathering dusk. The last word or two reechoed and sounded ghastly in the
solemn and lonely twilight.
“Somebody hiding around here,” said Ed, clapping his hand to his ear in
a funny manner of affectation. “He’s not going to get anything to eat
anyway, that’s one sure thing.”