A Wild Grapevine Rope
Their progress was of necessity tedious, but what did that matter,
so long as it was sure? A tender little fellow like Caleb could not
cover a very great distance before giving out, when he would be
forced to drop to the ground, perhaps yielding to a desire to go to
sleep.
Tubby and Andy were discussing this very thing, as they came along
after the two leaders. Occasionally Ralph joined in the
conversation.
“How far do you think a little chap like that could cover from
morning up to now?” Tubby asked.
“Oh! not over a couple of miles, I should say, but at the most twice
that far,” Andy replied, after giving the matter a little thought.
“Even at that he’d be apt to repeat, that is, wander around in a
circle, so at the end of the day he mightn’t be over a full mile
from where he started.”
“But they said the river was only a quarter of a mile off,”
suggested Tubby, darkly.
“Get that notion out of your head to begin with, please,”
interrupted Ralph. “I’m glad to tell you that we’ve been going in a
course that would never fetch out at the river; fact is, it lies
almost directly the other way.”
“Oh! I’m glad of that, Ralph, and thank you for telling us about
it!” ejaculated Tubby, with a heavy sigh of relief. “Because right
along I’ve been picturing little Caleb falling in, and no one near
to hear his cries for help. Then, if he isn’t drowned, we’re just
bound to find him.”
The same confidence seemed to possess Andy Bowles after hearing
Ralph say there was no danger of running across the swift river in
this direction. Meanwhile, those in the van were making steady
progress. Their little difficulties did not seem to daunt them in
the least, for after a brief pause now and then they would always
proceed with the same assurance, as though positive of their
movements.
Ralph presently drew a little closer to the leaders. He knew that
they consulted from time to time, and he wished to be near enough to
catch what was said, for by degrees Ralph was finding himself
becoming more and more interested in all that pertained to the
education of a scout. He knew no better way in which to pick up
sterling points than by listening.
Later on, after they had been progressing in this fashion for
upwards of a whole hour, he heard Rob saying something that
interested him very much.
“See how he wobbles from side to side as he goes on, will you, Sim?
That shows he must have been getting pretty tired about the time he
reached here.”
“That’s a fact, Rob,” added the other scout, anxiously. “It wouldn’t
surprise me a whit if we ran across the poor little chap somewhere
about here fast asleep. I don’t believe there’s any wild animal
around that would hurt him, do you?”
“Hardly, unless that savage old cat we saw up at Ralph’s pens had
wandered over this way, which isn’t likely. I’m throwing the light
on either side now, you notice, as we go along. Little Caleb may
have come part way back again before dropping.”
“How would it do for the rest of us to spread out with the lanterns,
and keep on the watch, Rob?” asked Ralph just then.
“Such a move would do no harm, anyhow,” the other replied, knowing
very well how anxious all of them must be to feel that they were
having a share in the work.
After that they continued on for some time. Rob was more than ever
convinced the lost child had reached a point bordering on
exhaustion, and that on no account could such a weak little chap
keep on his feet much longer.
Several times they had seen moving lights, showing that some of the
searching party must be close by; indeed, they heard their shouts at
stated intervals, though not replying to them.
“It seems queer to me,” Tubby was saying to Andy and Mr. Jeffords
and Peleg, all of whom were near him at the time, “how none of these
men with lanterns have run across the boy if, as we believe, he’s
close by here. I should think he’d have heard their calls and tried
to answer them; that is, unless he’s sleeping like a dog, being
tired to death.”
“Chances are that’s what’s the matter with him,” Andy agreed;
whereupon both boys settled down to anticipating a cry of joy from
those in the advance as they suddenly came upon the object of their
search, lying asleep amidst the dead leaves just as the famous
“Babes in the Woods” had done in the story.
So vastly superior was their method of search over that resorted to
by the frenzied father, and the equally unreliable neighboring
farmers, that Ralph was ready to give the scouts all the credit they
so fully deserved. He only awaited the final stroke before
confessing as to the great change in his belief.
Then Sim was heard to give vent to a cry. Somehow, it pierced the
heart of Tubby just as a dart might have done, because he failed to
detect the note of conscious triumph that he had so firmly
anticipated. Instead, the cry seemed of surprise and consternation.
“Oh! what is it, boys?” Tubby called out, with his voice all
unstrung. “I hope now you haven’t found him as we did that poor
demented man, you know?”
“We haven’t found him at all, yet,” answered Sim, after drawing a
long breath, like one who was trying to steel his faint heart
against a shock; “but come here, all of you, and see what we _have_
struck.”
At that the others hastened to advance, and were speedily alongside
Rob and Sim and Ralph, for the last-named had gained their side
almost immediately after the first alarm had sounded.
“Great governor! what’s this?” cried Andy.
“Why, it’s a gaping hole in the ground, I do believe!” gasped Tubby.
“Oh! do you think the poor darling has fallen in there, Rob?” and
his usually florid face seemed almost pallid with the horror that
seized upon him as he turned a beseeching look upon the scout
leader.
Rob once more threw the light from the torch upon the ground close
to the edge of that yawning aperture.
“It looks that way, I must own,” he told them. “See, here are plain
prints of his little shoes close to the brink. Yes, and you can see
where some slender bush was dragged, roots and all, from here--the
chances are he unconsciously clutched them when he felt himself
slipping, and pulled it in with him. Poor little chap, what a
terrible shock he must have had.”
All of them stared down into the aperture, but even the light from
the hand torch failed to show them what lay below. They could catch
glimpses of a rough, rocky wall, projecting roots of trees, and some
sort of growing bushes, but if the child were down there they failed
to discover anything of him.
“Well, who’s going down?” demanded Tubby, as though it were a
foregone conclusion in his mind that such a course must follow. “I’d
offer in a minute, only I’m sure Rob wouldn’t let me try it, while
there are so many others present better fitted for the job than I
am. But somebody must go down, and how can it be done when we
haven’t got a sign of a rope with us?”
“Do you think I could risk dropping down by holding to the face of
the wall, Rob?” asked Sim, quickly. If the other had answered in the
affirmative, there was no question but that he stood ready to make
the attempt without delay.
“Wait a bit and we’ll see,” the scout leader told him. “No need of
doing anything in such a hurry. If Caleb’s down there, a few minutes
more or less won’t hurt much; and it may mean a broken leg for you,
Sim, if you slipped. I’ve got an idea that may pan out, and make up
for the lack of a rope. Just back there I noticed a wild grapevine
hanging from a tree. If we could cut that free, we might have a
pretty good substitute for a rope, something like twenty feet long.”
“Fine for you, Rob!” cried Ralph, overcome with admiration. “How
lucky you asked me for my little camp hatchet before we started out.
Perhaps now you even anticipated having just such a need for the
same! I’m beginning to believe you can see further ahead than any
fellow I ever met.”
Rob made no response, although naturally enough this sort of genuine
praise must have been pleasant to him; especially when coming from a
fellow like the Adirondack boy, whom he was aching to convert to a
new belief regarding the value scouts may have in a community.
Rob was already hacking away with a vim at the wild grapevine
mentioned, having given the hand torch into the charge of Sim. It
did not require many blows to sever the vine near its base, for
Ralph apparently believed in keeping a fine cutting edge on his pet
tool.
Once it was free, they seized hold and commenced to heave, but, of
course, this was an effort without any response; the vine was too
safely anchored to the branches of the tree to be dragged loose as
easily as all that.
“Let me shin up, and cut it free, Rob,” suggested Sim, who was a
great climber in his way, and never so happy as when sporting amidst
the foliage of some great oak or beechnut tree.
“All right, if you say so, Sim,” the scout leader told him. “Be sure
and get all the length you can, because we may need it. There’s no
telling just how deep that hole will turn out to be.”
“The poor little thing, to think of him falling all the way down
there!” Tubby was heard to say in sympathetic tones.
Agile Sim had already tucked the camp hatchet safely in his belt,
and taking a good hold of the swaying vine started his ascent. Some
of the others clutched it below so as to give him a steady support.
Sim proved his ability as a climber by the rapid way in which he
passed up among the lower branches of the tree to which the wild
grapevine was attached.
Turning the light upward, Rob could follow the progress of the
climber, and found it convenient to call out occasionally in order
to advise Sim.
“Not less than twenty feet, and five more if you can make it, Sim!”
he told the other. “I should think it would be thick enough to hold
a ton if it’s only an inch through; these grapevines are tougher
than any rope ever made. There, try and do your cutting where you
are. Once you get it through, we’ll start to drag again, and I
reckon it’s bound to come next time.”
A minute later Sim announced that his part of the work had been
completed, upon which Rob and Ralph and the others laid hold with
such a will that they soon had the severed vine on the ground.
After that Sim joined them, coming sliding down the trunk of the
tree with the agility of a monkey.
The vine was carried over to where they had discovered that gaping
aperture into which it seemed likely little Caleb had fallen. None
of the boys seemed in any humor for joking just then; indeed, they
were unusually grave, as though the shadow of some impending tragedy
hung over their heads.
Rob directed operations, and even Ralph seemed only too willing to
do whatever he was told. Strange, how in emergencies, it is always
the strong mind that seizes the reins, and all others readily
acquiesce, no matter in whatever shape the orders come. How many a
desperate enterprise has been carried to a glorious success simply
because a fit leader has developed when the conditions demanded;
while others that promised well in the beginning have fallen flat
through lack of the initiative on the part of the actors.
The vine was allowed to drop into the aperture, with the thick end
down. When it seemed as though it rested firmly on something below,
Rob judged that the hole must be all of twenty-three feet deep. That
was a startling fact when they remembered that a child had stepped
into that break and must have gone headlong down through space.