"I'll tell you, fellows," began Rob, a day or so after they had brought
home the young eagles--"I'll tell you what we ought to do to-day after
we have got the breakfast dishes done. Let's make a trip over to the big
rocks beyond, where we went with Jimmy that time. If the eggs are not
all hatched, and if these birds keep on laying, as maybe they do, we
might still get some fresh eggs."
"That would be fine," said John, "because I for one am getting just a
little tired of salmon all the while. I'd give anything for a good piece
of bread and butter."
"Or pie," said Jesse, his mouth almost watering.
"Now, there you go," said Rob, "talking about things we can't have. Why,
I wouldn't give a cent for a piece of pie myself--that is, not unless it
was a piece of real cherry pie, with fresh cherries, the kind we used
to get--" All three boys looked at one another and broke out laughing.
"Anyhow," said John, "maybe we can make a sort of pie after the
salmon-berries get ripe. At least we could if we had a little flour and
lard and baking-powder and things--"
"And if we knew how," added Jesse. "It seems to me the best thing we can
do, the way things are, is to go egg-hunting as Rob suggests."
There was perhaps more wisdom in Rob's plan than any one of the boys
knew at first. He was old and wise enough to know that the best way to
keep them all from homesickness was to be busy all the time. This
discovery is not new among military men, or those who lead exploring
parties, although it was one which Rob thought out for himself; so now
he went on:
"We'll just take the dory," he said, "and slip down the coast beyond the
mouth of the creek, and so on beyond the rocks where Jimmy and we all
went when we got the sea-parrot hides. There are rocks over there, tall
needles with straight sides, that have got thousands of birds of all
sorts on them."
"What will we do with our eagles?" asked Jesse, hesitating.
"We can leave them plenty of food, and put a few boards together so
that they can get under in case the crows or ravens should attack them.
They will get along all right, I am sure."
"I'd like to go with Skookie in the bidarka," said John, but Rob shook
his head.
"No, you don't," he said, "you go in the dory with the rest of us. That
boy is all right, but he might not be strong enough to handle a bidarka
in a high sea; and up here we never can tell when the wind is going to
come up."
"Suppose it did upset," said John, sturdily. "I have been out of it,
here in the lagoon."
"Yes, but that is different from getting upset out there in the middle
of the bay. You know perfectly well that you could not get back in
again; and swimming out there is something different from the lagoon,
where the bank is right at hand all the time. I don't even like to go
very far out in the dory; but see, it is fair and calm just now. So
hurry up and let's get away. Get all the rope you can, too, fellows,
because we may have to go down the face of the rock to get at the
nests."
"I have seen pictures of that," said Jesse--"how the egg-gatherers go
down in a rope handled by other men up above them on the rocks. Do you
suppose that three of us could pull the other fellow up and down?
Skookie here looks pretty strong."
"I don't know," said Rob, "but we'll take the rope along and see how it
works out."
Not long after they were safely off in the big dory, which, under two
pairs of oars and with the wind favorable, astern, made very good time
down the long spit at the mouth of the creek. Beyond that point they
were obliged to take to the open bay, quite out of touch of land, for a
distance of a mile and a half. This brought them to the foot of a small,
rocky island, out of which arose two or three sharp, column-like groups
of rocks which, as Rob had said, were literally covered with nesting
birds.
"We'll have to get around behind," said Rob; "nobody could climb up on
this side, that's sure."
Scrambling over the loose rocks, left wet and slippery by the tide, they
passed to the rear of these pillars, first having made fast the dory so
that it could not be carried away. In the pools of sea-water they found
many strange shells and several specimens of the squid, or cuttle-fish,
upon which Skookie fell gleefully. He and his people are fond of this
creature as an article of food; but its loathsome look turned the others
against it, so that with reluctance he was forced to throw them away
again.
At the back of the largest of these rock pinnacles they stood in
hesitation for a moment, for the ascent seemed hard enough. At last,
however, Rob found a sort of cleft or large crack, which seemed to lead
up toward the top, and whose rough sides seemed to give foothold
sufficient for a bold climber. "Here we go, fellows!" he said, and so
started on up, hand over hand, the best he could. To their satisfaction,
however, they found the going not so hard as it had looked from below.
At the top, the sides of the cleft seemed to pinch together, so that in
some places they were obliged to climb as a chimney-sweep does, their
legs pressed across the open space; but as they were all out-of-door
boys and well used to Alaska mountain work, they went ahead fearlessly
and soon found themselves at the summit of the tower-like rock, whence
they had a splendid view of the bay and the surrounding country.
Startled by their presence, the sea-birds took wing in hundreds and
thousands, soaring around them, flapping almost in their faces, and
uttering wild, discordant cries. The boys fought these off as they began
to explore the top of the rock.
"Mostly little gulls here," said John, "and I never heard they were good
to eat. I don't like the look of these eggs, either. Looks as if we were
too late for a real good egg season."
"Well," said Rob, "anyhow, we have had a good climb and a good look over
the country. Now, what I propose to do is to see what there is lower
down on the face of the cliff. I'm sure there's a lot of sea-parrots
there, because I can see them flying in and out down below."
"Let me go down, Rob," said John. "I'm lighter than you are."
"No," said Jesse, "I think I ought to go down, because I am even lighter
than you, John, and Rob is stronger than either of us."
"I'll tell you how we'll fix that," said Rob. "We'll tie the end of the
rope around this big rock here; and I'll pass the other end through my
belt and pay it out as I climb down. I won't need to put all my weight
on the rope, but will just use it to steady me as I climb. If I have any
trouble getting up, why, then you three fellows can see what you can do
toward pulling. Don't you let it slip, now. And if I shake the rope
three times, then you begin to pull. You can signal me the same way if I
get where you can't see me, or where you can't hear me call for the
noise the birds are making."
It was really a dangerous thing which Rob proposed to do, but boys do
not always stop to figure about danger when there is something
interesting ahead. Passing the rope through his belt as he had said, he
kept hold of the free end with one hand, and so, picking his way from
one projecting point to another, he began slowly to pass down the
seaward face of the rock, which proved to be not so steep as it had
seemed from below, although ridged here and there with sharp walls or
cut banks, which crossed from almost one face of the pinnacle to the
other.
Rob's daring was rewarded by the finding of countless numbers of nests
of the sea-parrots, which were bored back straight into the face of the
cleft. "Here they are, boys!" he called back, his voice being even by
this time barely distinguishable amid the clamor of the gulls and other
wild birds which continuously circled about.
Rob thrust his arm into one of these holes in the cleft, and was lucky
enough to catch a female parrot by the neck and to pull her out without
any injury to himself. For a time he examined the bird, laughing at its
awkward movements when he flung it on the rocks at last, uninjured.
Then he edged on along the rock face, his foot on a sort of narrow
shelf and his body guided by the supporting rope. "I can get a lot of
them here!" he called up to his friends.
A moment later he pushed his arm again into an aperture among these
nests. At once he uttered a sudden, sharp cry and pulled out his arm.
His finger had been bitten almost to the bone by the hornlike beak of
one of the birds. The pain of this alone would have been bad enough, but
now it caused a still more serious accident.
As Rob shook his bleeding finger at his side, and half raised his left
arm to fend off the rush of two or three angry wild birds, he suddenly
slipped with one foot at the edge of the narrow shelf on which he stood,
and before he could catch his balance or do more than tightly grasp the
free end of the rope which passed under his belt, over and down he went.
For one swift instant he saw the long, white, curling breakers on the
beach below him, for he fell face downward, his body or feet scarcely
touching the rocky wall. He never knew quite how it happened, but in
some way the rope jammed at his belt, and before he had fallen more than
fifteen or twenty feet he found himself fast, but swinging like a
plummet at the end of the line, entirely out of touch, with either
hands or feet, with the face of the rocky wall. Below him he could
faintly hear the murmur of the sea on the rocks a hundred and fifty feet
below. Above him he could see nothing but the edge of the shelf over
which he had fallen. As soon as he could control himself, he called
aloud again and again, but he got no answer. If his friends above heard
him, their answer was drowned by the clamor of the wild birds. Here,
then, was the most serious situation in which he had ever found himself
in all his life.
Up above, on the summit of the rock, the boys had seen the sudden jerk
on the rope and noticed that now it was motionless, whereas before it
had trembled and shifted as Rob moved along the shelf. Skookie was the
first to divine what had happened. He pointed to the cord, now tense and
stiff, and leaned out over the rim, peering down at the shelf where Rob
had stood.
"Him gone!" said he, turning back a sober face. "Pretty soon him die
now, I guess."
Jesse and John looked at each other with white faces. They sprang to the
rope, but hesitated, fearing lest touching it might prove dangerous.
"Wait," said Jesse. "Let's look around first and get our wits together.
One thing is certain, he is down there at the end of this. If the rope
was not fast to him it would be loose and we could pull it up. That
means that he is alive yet, anyhow, I am sure." He leaned far out over
the rim of the summit, and between his hollowed hands called down:
"Don't be afraid, Rob! We'll pull you up pretty soon!"
Dangling far down at the end of the rope, Rob at first grew faint and
dizzy. He dared not look below him, but had presence of mind enough to
keep his eyes fixed on the nearest part of the cap of the rocky wall, so
that he was less dizzy, although he whirled round and about at the
extremity of the rope, which it seemed to him would almost cut him in
two. None the less he made the end all the more secure about his waist;
then once in a while he would ease the strain by lifting a little with a
hand above his head. He shifted the rope until the noose came closer
under his arms, realizing that he must not exhaust his strength in
trying to raise his weight hand over hand. Thus, after the first few
minutes of fright and after he had dared to open his eyes and take stock
of the dangerous plight in which he found himself, he began calmly to
reason, as very often one will who finds himself in imminent peril, the
situation being too serious to allow him time for fright.
Skookie sat down apathetically on the rocks and made no move. "Get up
there, Skookie!" said Jesse. "Why do you act like a dummy? Nobody is
dead yet. We're going to haul him up; don't you see? Now get hold of the
rope--all of us; now, all together!"
They lifted as hard as they could, but, do their best, they could gain
almost nothing on the rope. Little as that was, Rob felt it down below
and knew that they were trying to save him.
"Now what shall we do?" John asked Jesse, in distress. "If we can't pull
him up--and maybe we'd cut the rope on the rocks trying to do that--why,
then, how is he going to get out of that?"
Skookie, seeing that they had but little success in lifting the heavy
weight at the other end of the rope, now, without any orders, tried a
plan of his own. Passing along the edge of the rim of rock off to the
right, he found a place where he could descend for at least a short
distance. He disappeared below, but presently came back, his face
lighted up with the first sign of hope it had shown.
"Dis way!" he said; "dis way!" and made motions that they should pull
on the rope and shift it to the right as far as they were able. The
young native's sharp eyes had seen that if Rob could get to a place a
little farther at one side than where he hung, he could get his feet
against the rock, and so, perhaps, help himself more than otherwise
would be possible.
A little consultation followed at the top of the rock, then inch by inch
the boys edged the rope along. Rob found himself, without any effort of
his own, gradually approaching the face of the rock. At last he could
kick it; and so he helped himself, pendulum fashion, until finally he
got a hand on a rocky point, and so could rest his weight on the rough
surface. To him even this vantage-ground seemed as if it were actual
safety, so much better was it than swinging helpless like a fly on a
cord. When his weight was taken from the rope those above at first
thought that he had fallen to the foot of the cliff; but now he gave the
signal of three short jerks, and they saw that he must have reached some
place where he could support his weight. At this they broke out into a
shout of joy.
"Now, what will we do?" asked Jesse, thoughtfully. "We won't pull up
until he signals us again, I guess. Maybe he will try to come up
himself, steadying himself by the rope, the way he went down. I wish we
could see where he is."
This chance counsel of Jesse's was precisely the best thing that could
have happened, for Rob had now determined to help himself by climbing up
the rope hand over hand in the attempt to reach the ledge from which he
had fallen. How he was going to get over the edge he could not clearly
see, but he was now convinced that the friction on the rope was such
that his friends could not haul him up, and that if he were saved he
must save himself by getting above that projecting edge.
Slowly he began to feel his way up the rock, supporting his weight as
much as possible without the use of the rope, until, half leaning
against the rock and half pulling on the rope, which was now shifted to
a point directly above his head, he reached a place where he could no
longer keep in touch with the rocky face. Then bravely, as should any
one who finds himself in such straits, he swung out and rapidly began to
climb up the rope, hand over hand, sailor fashion.
He reached the edge of the rock, and perhaps might have been able in
some way to get above it without injury, although, on the other hand, he
might never have been able to get across unaided. What happened was
that the boys up above, seeing the rope again agitated and not certain
what their best course now might be, laid hold of it and began to pull
as hard as they could. The result was that Rob's left hand, just as he
reached the rim of rock, was caught under the rope. He flung his other
hand around the corner, caught the rope, and scrambled up on one knee
just as the strong heave from above tore the rope almost through his
fingers, cutting them open as they lay against the rocks.
The pain was intense, but he hardly minded that, for he saw now that he
was again in safety. From there on up the face of the rock he scrambled
on hands and knees, slipping and falling, but still going up, assisted
by the steady pull, hand over hand, of his friends, who now saw what had
happened, and who encouraged him with their shouts. So, none of them
knew just how, presently he found himself at the summit once more, the
others about him, all talking at once.
Rob held up his mangled hand, from which the blood was now flowing
freely. The wounds to his fingers were really serious, but he bore the
pain as bravely as he could, although his face was white.
"Anyhow, I got back," said he, shaking the blood from his hand. "I
think the best thing we can do now is to start on home. I ought to do
something for this hand as soon as possible."
They were all pale and very much frightened. All at once Rob began to
tremble, his hands and legs shaking uncontrollably. The nervous strain
having now relaxed, the full shock of terror and pain set in, as often
is seen in the cases of grown men similarly situated. It was some time
before he recovered sufficiently to be able to risk the dangerous climb
down the cliff on the inner side of the pinnacle. At last, however, they
found themselves again safely in the dory, where, of course, his
companions would not allow him to think of rowing. Progress against the
wind and sea they found now much slower, and it was almost an hour
before they reached the mouth of the creek, where Rob could land on the
beach and so walk up toward the hut. By that time his hand was badly
swollen and giving him intense pain.
The boys did not attempt to take the dory around to the landing opposite
to the hut, but left it moored at the creek mouth. They did not talk a
great deal as they returned to the barabbara at the close of their
disastrous day. The pain which Rob suffered gave them all concern. It
was Skookie once more who proved himself resourceful. Without asking
leave of any one, he crossed the lagoon on the stepping-stones and
disappeared in the thicket beyond. A few minutes later he appeared with
his hands full of coarse green leaves with slender, lance-shaped tips,
the name of which none of the boys ever knew.
"_Karosha_," he said--"all right, all right," and so proceeded to bind
these on Rob's wounded fingers. Having wrapped them in a number of the
leaves, he led Rob to the edge of the creek, and here made up a big ball
of mud, which he plastered over the entire hand.
"Now I am a pretty sight," said Rob. "I was going to wash my hands, but
maybe this will do. I have heard that natives sometimes know a thing or
two about taking care of such things."
The native lad's knowledge of simples proved more efficient than any of
them had dreamed. In the course of half an hour Rob's face brightened.
"Why," said he, "I don't believe it hurts so badly now. Skookie, you are
a great little doctor." And, indeed, that night he slept as soundly as
any, although they all spent less time than usual that evening in talk
about the doings of the day.