THE ACCIDENT
When Fred felt himself falling he immediately relaxed every muscle in
his body. That is a trick known to athletes the world over. The ordinary
person would on the contrary contract his muscles; so that on striking
he must suffer violently in consequence. A baby will frequently fall
several stories, and seem to have received no injury at all, where a
grown man would have been killed. The secret is in its unconsciousness
of peril, and consequently it lands like a bag of salt, instead of a
hard rock.
It seemed as though he must have dropped many feet before Fred struck
bottom. He lay there a few seconds, wondering whether he had really
sustained any damage.
"Might as well know the worst," he finally muttered, struggling to his
knees, and finally to his feet; when he stretched his arms, bent his
body, and then gave a little chuckle.
"Well, talk about your luck," he remarked to himself; "if this don't
just beat all. Don't believe I've so much as strained the tendon of a
finger. And yet it must have been a twelve or fifteen foot drop. Whew!"
He turned his gaze upward. There was the mouth of the pit plainly seen,
for the blue October sky lay beyond. He could also make out where he had
torn through the weeds and green brush that had so artfully hidden the
mouth of the hole from even his watchful eyes.
"Well," he continued to remark; "this is a fine business, I must say. It
ends my time-taking for to-day, sure. Even if I manage to crawl up out
of here, enough of my precious minutes will have gone glimmering to
upset all my calculations. But I'm not out of the scrape yet. Now to see
about that same climb."
Up to the time he set to work with this object in view, Fred had not the
least idea he would find it a very difficult job. He was soon undeceived
in that particular.
"Say, the sides of this pit are as hard as flint, and slippery as glass.
I don't seem able to dig my toes in worth a cent," he presently
remarked, stopping to get his breath after a violent exertion, which had
netted no result in progress.
For the first time Fred began to feel a trifle bothered. He had escaped
injury in a way that seemed little short of miraculous; but if he had to
stay there all night it would prove no joke.
He made another desperate effort to climb the straight wall, selecting
a spot that seemed to offer more advantages than the rest.
Five minutes later he had to confess himself worsted in the attempt.
Somehow he could not make the least impression on the rocky wall. If he
did manage to get several feet up, it was only to lose his slight grip,
and fall back again.
While he was once more recovering his wind, Fred began to take stock of
the situation, to see where he stood.
"If I only had a good knife now," he told himself, "perhaps I might
manage to dig toe-holds in the old wall; but since a fellow doesn't
carry such a thing in his running togs, here I am left high and dry. And
I declare, it feels rather chilly already down here, with next to
nothing on. I wonder if I can stand a night of it. Not much chance of me
taking part in that road race tomorrow. Well, this has got past the joke
stage, for a fact!"
It certainly had. He no longer laughed when he fell back after losing
his grip on some slight projection in the wall. It was getting more
serious all the time; and the longer Fred considered the matter, the
worse his plight became.
He had taken a course that was really next to unknown to any of his
chums. They would not be able to guess where to look for him, even if he
did happen to be missed.
"And just to think," he went on bitterly, as he exercised his arms to
keep his chilling blood in circulation, "Brad even had to tell me not to
show up again on the field after I'd made my five miles. So not a fellow
will miss me. At home perhaps they'll just believe I've stopped with
Sid, as I often do. They may even go to bed with the idea that I'll be
along later. Wow! that would mean all night for me in this miserable
hole."
How about morning, when Riverport would awaken to the fact that for the
second time one of their promising young school athletes had
mysteriously disappeared?
"Say, won't there be some high jinks though?" Fred exclaimed, for,
somehow, it did not seem quite so lonely when he could hear the sound of
his own voice. "I can just shut my eyes, and see the whole place boiling
like a kettle, with the fellows running back and forth, and everybody
just wild. I wonder now, will they give Buck the credit of this
business, too? It seems to be pretty well known that he is suspected of
being at the head of the crowd that carried Colon off. Well, for once
then, Buck will be unjustly accused. But I guess they'll make life
miserable for him."
The thought of the bully being treated to a ride on a fence rail with
his legs tied underneath, amid a jeering mob of Riverport schoolboys,
amused Fred for just about a minute.
Then the necessity of trying to think up some plan by which he might
escape from the pit caused him to put Buck out of his mind.
The boys had always said that Fred was the most ingenious fellow they
had ever known. He could invent schemes that often made some of the
duller-witted chaps fairly gasp, and declare he must be a wizard.
If ever he had need of that faculty it was now. If wishing could give
him a pair of wings, or bring a convenient rope into his hands, the
other end of which was tied to a neighboring tree, Fred was ready to
devote himself heart and soul to the task.
Outside of his short running trunks, a light, close-fitting shirt, and
the socks and running shoes which were on his feet, Fred did not have
another particle of clothing along. He was bareheaded. Without even a
bit of string, a pocket knife, or even a match on his person, what
chance then did he have to escape from that lime quarry pit?
And it was very damp there in the bargain. Water oozed across one corner
of the hole. If he had to stay there twelve hours, the chances were he
would take a severe cold that might prove serious.
Really, the more he looked the situation in the face the more it
appalled him. Try as he might he could think of no new plan that gave
the slightest promise of results. If he kept on endeavoring to climb
that slippery wall until he fell utterly exhausted, what would that
avail him? Better to go slow and reserve at least a small portion of his
energies, in case, later on, he did think up some scheme that had a
faint show of success.
How about shouting for help? Colon had tried that game, and it had not
worked, simply because there happened to be no one near the old mill at
the time. Later on, however, his simple groans and grunts attracted the
attention of the prowling Gabe, and led to what would have been his
rescue, even had not Fred and the others arrived on the scene.
But here, in this quarry where no one ever came, so far as he knew, what
chance was there of his shouts being heard? Fred thought about one in a
thousand. Still, there was no choice for him. And perhaps that one
little chance might pan out; he had known of stranger things happening,
in his own experience.
So he lifted up his voice and called:
"Help! help! Oh! help!"
It was a cry that must thrill anyone who heard it, welling up out of
that deep pit. Waiting a minute or more, Fred started in again, and
shouted louder than ever.
Listening, he could hear the afternoon breeze sighing among the branches
of the trees that grew almost over the gap in the quarry. Even that
died out, as if it meant to pass with the day, which must now be very
near its close.
It seemed so utterly foolish to waste his breath in this vain calling
that Fred changed his plans for a short time, and once more tried to
scale the straight wall.
This time he succeeded in making about four feet, and then had a tumble
that quite jarred him.
"That ought to let me know, all right, that I'll never make the top in a
year of Sundays, as Corney always says," he remarked, rubbing his elbow
where he had barked it on a stone, so that it smarted.
To amuse himself while he tried to think up some new scheme, Fred fell
to shouting again. He had a good, strong voice, but down in that
confined space it seemed muffled, and he would never have recognized it
himself.
Once he stopped and listened eagerly, his heart jumping with sudden
hope. Oh! was it possible that he had really caught what seemed to be a
distant voice calling?
If only it might not be some scolding bluejay; or perhaps a gossipy
crow, perched on a neighboring dead tree.
It did not come again; and so Fred hurriedly started to shout once more,
straining his lungs in order to make the sound carry further. So much
depended on help coming to him before the night set in. If he had to
spend many hours there he might suffer in the form of rheumatism for a
long time afterwards, on account of the exposure in such a damp and cold
place.
Then he stopped to listen again, holding his very breath in suspense.
What a thrill it gave him when he distinctly heard some one bawl out:
"Hello! yourself! Where under the sun are you; and what's the matter?"
That was no crow or bluejay, he knew for a certainty; and accordingly
Fred made haste to answer:
"I'm down in one of the lime pits here. Can't get out. Please come and
give me a hand. This way! I'll keep calling to guide you; but don't
leave me whatever you do."
Every few seconds thereafter he would give a shout, to be answered by
the unknown, who was evidently getting warmer and warmer on the scent.
Never could Fred remember when a human voice had sounded so sweet to
him; simply because it meant rescue and safety, and a chance to run in
the great race upon which his heart was set.
Now he could actually hear the other moving above, and so he gave a last
little whoop. The bushes were thrust aside as he called; "down here; I
see you;" and then a human head was thrust into view. And Fred felt a
chill that was not induced by the dampness of the lime pit, when he
made out that face in the light of the setting sun. For he found himself
staring at the grinning countenance of the last person in all the world
he would have hoped to see--Buck Lemington!