WESTY’S DESCENT
Westy Martin lost no time in starting down the face of the ravine toward
his friend. The cliff he descended was so precipitous that the problem
of reaching the bottom alive absorbed all his attention and he had no
time to worry much over what condition he might find Warde in.
Occasionally, as he hung by his fingers from one rock and ventured to
drop to a shelf below, he wondered how anything could be left of Warde
at all. Sometimes the loose stones and dirt gave way under his feet and
sent him tumbling until he could clutch a bush and hold on, only to find
his hands and knees skinned raw. Pausing to pant and gain his balance,
Westy would try not to wonder whether the vultures would leave anything
of Warde for him to find. It was lucky for Westy that the sunlight,
reflected against these steep rocks which directly faced the sunset, lit
up the ravine long after Ed, on the opposite side of the mountain, was
left in darkness. For Westy, in darkness, would have been in peril
indeed, since the task he was attempting seemed to him very like those
movie scenes of a Human Fly crawling down the face of a skyscraper! Had
this ravine been an Alpine pass traversed by mountain-climbing tourists,
each tourist would have been roped to another and guides would have
controlled these safety lines. Such a descent Westy was daring all
alone. He came at last to a narrow and abrupt slide between two long
walls of rock. Here there were few bushes to hold back by and the only
thing to do, Westy decided, was to sit down and slide. To climb back and
hunt another way down was impossible. So down he sat and slid
cautiously, but try as he might to brake his pace with his feet, he shot
faster and faster until he had every fear that he would shoot clean off
the mountainside and land below, food for vultures too. Vainly he spread
his feet and clutched at the rocks with his hands until his fingers
bled. He could not stop himself, but, gathering momentum, he shot down
the mountain slide faster than before. Ahead of him the rocks narrowed
so that while at first he had a gleam of hope that they would stop his
fall, on tumbling nearer he felt sure that to dash against them at his
present speed would only dash out his brains and at best break all his
ribs. With never a thought that he might shoot over an edge into
eternity, Westy quickly lay flat on his back and in a spatter of pebbles
and cloud of dust shot safely between the narrow walls of rock just
skinning both shoulders. He found himself riding on a miniature
landslide coasting quickly toward the edge of overhanging rock and his
heart leapt to his throat as he realized he might as well fall off a
twelve-story fire-escape to pavements below, as hope to survive the
dashing to pieces which he now faced. In the flash of time that it took
for the falling dirt to shoot him out on this ledge, he had one
sickening moment when he wished he had never heard of scouting, and it
must be confessed he offered up a quick prayer for help. Then the
miracle happened, as if in answer to this prayer. He stopped as suddenly
as he had started. The seat of his breeches had caught on the branches
of a small scrub pine that thrust out from between rocks in the path of
his descent, and this had checked his fall. For a moment Westy hardly
dared draw breath for fear brush or breeches give way. Then, securing a
grip on the friendly little pine and assuring himself that it was rooted
sturdily, Westy cautiously freed himself and lay down to study the way
ahead. It was less steep below, and, lowering himself down inch by inch,
Westy was soon on a safe way to the bottom. His shirt was scraped off
from neck to belt, including considerable skin, the seat of his trousers
could never be the same again, but save for such battle scars, Westy, to
his surprise and thankfulness, was not so much the worse for all the
hard wear and tear he had undergone “skidding down the face of the
Woolworth Tower,” as Ed would have said. Westy now faced the task of
finding Warde. This was made only too easy by the sight of vultures
ahead. Furious at these loathsome scavengers Westy ran headlong, yelling
to frighten them away. The sight ahead made him pause and feel too faint
to move.
Two giant birds were tearing at the scout figure with their hideous
curved beaks. Westy was near enough to see their powerful crooked claws
with which they helped in tearing his friend’s khaki suit. The bird’s
ugly naked necks twisted to and fro in their bloody task. A great smear
of red discolored the tunic. At Westy’s approach the huge birds flapped
roughly away on ragged wings that made a great creaking and rustling and
left behind the smell of carrion.
Westy could never tell how he summoned courage to approach that lump of
blood and khaki. But when he finally found himself standing by it he
could not believe his eyes. This was not Warde he was gazing at, but a
mere dummy stuffed with sticks and leaves and baited with some meat and
old dead fish! It was only a scarecrow that had fallen over the cliff!
Bewildered by this unbelievable hoax Westy stood spellbound. At this
moment a great scrambling and shouting followed by hearty laughter broke
upon him and Mr. Wilde, followed by Billy, the camera man, came out of
the woods opposite, convulsed with loud guffaws.
“Well, young one, if I ever called you a little Lord Fauntleroy I take
it all back now,” roared Mr. Wilde. “You’re the original Douglas
Fairbanks and a true screen star. You’ve made this film a howling
success.” Whereupon he doubled up with laughter which cramped him so
violently that for a time he could not speak.
“Oh, laugh! laugh!” urged Billy, ironically, rubbing at his neck. “It’s
awful funny! Oh, yes! A mere incident like breaking my only neck in the
cause is nothing! Oh, no! Laugh! Laugh by all means!”
“Well, what _is_ he laughing at?” demanded Westy crossly. Here was
Westy, his clothes and skin peeled off in too many places for comfort
and after risking life and limb and undergoing the nervous shock of
hours of horror. He was now simply laughed at. Small wonder if Westy
felt sore in spirit as well as in body. Billy explained as Mr. Wilde
could do nothing but snicker.
“Why, he wanted to film the birds in the act of knocking some one off a
cliff, and I don’t doubt he’d have used me for that part if he didn’t
need me to crank the camera. Anyway, he spared me and rigged up a dummy.
He didn’t want you kids getting into danger up there so he said nothing
to you. You remember Ed didn’t wear his scout suit. Well, we took that
along to stuff for a dummy. We had to bait the scarecrow with stuff to
attract the old buzzards, and for that we’d brought along some meat
anyway, and we just stuffed it inside the suit. I’m afraid Ed’s suit is
ruined; we didn’t expect that. We’ll get him another. It was well worth
the price, for it all worked out fine after we’d worked all day up
there, scaring up those birds and trying to hide from them and focus on
the dummy and all. Just as the sunlight began to go back on us the birds
condescended to star for something elegant. They knocked the boy scout
over the cliff and I filmed it for a thriller. Well, then something
happened that we hadn’t bargained for and it was too good to miss. We
saw you start down the cliff on the other side. Mr. Wilde was afraid
you’d fall, but I said, no, you could make it all right, you weren’t a
scout for nothing and when you didn’t hear him when he yelled to you to
go back I said, ‘let him go ahead and I’ll snap him too and we can add
it to the picture as the “Daredevil Rescue.”’ Well, it was too good to
miss. We followed along down after you on the other side and I hope to
say the movie fan’s hair will stick up on end when they see you shoot
the shoots and hang over the Leap of Death by the seat of your pants. It
was wonderful! Doug Fairbanks isn’t in it. I’m sorry to say it got too
dark for me to get you when you discover the body and you’ll have to act
that over for me in broad daylight. Of course the fact that I had to run
along holding on by my eyelashes in steep spots just to film you, is a
mere detail. Wilde just kept laughing and hollering at me, ‘Shoot!
shoot! There’s a good one, shoot!’ and I said, ‘I’ll break my neck at
this,’ and he said, ‘Well, don’t break the camera.’ Oh, a camera man has
a sweet life. I twisted every joint out of socket on the way down, but,
oh, boy, wait till you see yourself in that picture!”
This pleasing prospect cheered Westy enough to remove the sting of
ridicule that pricked him when he saw he had been made the goat, and be
it said to his credit that he joined Mr. Wilde in laughing at himself.
“Yes, but what about Ed?” he asked.