THE CHIMNEY
Then on her right she heard a soft rustling, immediately followed by a
low call:
"Dorothy, where are you?"
The words brought her joyous relief. "Coming!" she replied in a cautious
whisper, and with her left hand feeling the almost sheer wall, she
hurried toward Bill's voice.
From the darkness he grasped her hand and spoke close to her ear. "I've
located the chimney, Dorothy."
"Good! I was getting worried. Is it far away?"
"No. Only a few steps."
"What kept you so long, Bill?"
"Had to find the rope."
"What rope?"
They were moving now in the direction from which he had come.
"The one Terry hid in a niche of the rocks. Talk of hunting needles in
a--"
"But do we need it?"
"Couldn't risk the climb without it. You've never done any mountain
scaling--I have."
"Well, what's the dope?"
They had stopped and Bill took her arm. "Here--let me knot this end
around your waist. First, ditch the slicker, though. You won't be able
to climb in that. I'll take care of it for the present."
He took her coat and she felt him make the rope secure.
"I'm tied to the other end," he told her.
"But what'll you do about my slicker, Bill? If we ever get to the top of
the ridge, I'll need it."
Bill was busy and didn't answer for a moment. Then--"Your coat and mine
are rolled up and lashed to my back," he explained. "I'm going first. I
know more about this kind of thing than you, and my reach is longer. May
have to pull you up the hard places. Don't be afraid to put weight on
the rope when I give the word. But if you slip--yell."
He did not say that a slip on her part would in all probability pull him
with her to crash on the rocky ground below. Bill Bolton did not believe
in being an alarmist, but she understood just the same.
"Thanks, I'll do my best, Bill."
"Start climbing." His voice came from above her head and she felt a jerk
on the rope. "This chimney is a fissure in the cliff, and it slants
slightly upward, thank goodness. Reach above and get handholds on the
rock projections first. Then pull yourself up, until you find a
foothold. When you put your weight on your feet, press your legs against
the side walls. That will keep you from slipping. Take it easy and rest
as much as you like. This kind of thing can only be done slowly."
"I'm coming," Dorothy said quietly and she pressed her body into the
niche she could not see.
"That's the stuff! I'll rest while you climb. And while you're doing it,
I'll keep the rope taut and out of your way."
Dorothy was silent. Groping in the darkness above her head, her fingers
came in contact with a rough projection. It was little more than a small
knob in the rocky side of the chimney, but she managed to get a firm
grip on it with her right hand. Her left found another projection
slightly lower on the other side. She exerted all her strength and
slithered upward.
Drawing her knees up she sought rests for her feet on the sides, but the
rock seemed absolutely smooth. For an instant she was at a loss. Then
remembering Bill's advice, she pressed her legs against the chimney
walls and pushed.
That her body moved upward so easily came as a surprise. It was hard to
realize that sheer walls would give such a purchase. Almost at once her
shoulders were above the hand holds and she could raise herself by
pressing downward until her left knee was planted on the same projection
that she had gripped with that hand.
Braced firmly against the rock, she looked for higher hand holds, found
them and soon was able to get her left foot on to the place where her
knee had been. With her weight on that foot, it became a simple matter
to plant her right in the opposite niche. Straightening her body, she
lay forward against the slanting cliff and rested.
"Go ahead, Bill," she called in a low voice as soon as she could speak.
"O.K., kid," came the prompt reply from overhead. "On my way."
Pressed against the wet rockface she could hear the scrape of his boots
and the heavy breathing of muscular strain. Her own thin soled shoes
were sodden from the wet of the woods and pasture. Worse still, the
leather was bursting at the sides. And this climb would probably
complete their ruin. By the time she reached the top, they would be
beyond walking in at all. Never again would she board her plane shod in
pumps.
"Come along!"
Bill interrupted her soliloquy, and using the same tactics as before she
continued to climb.
The first drops of rain she had felt at the bottom of the cliff now
increased to a steady downpour. Dorothy became soaked to the skin. Water
from her leather helmet ran down her forehead, forcing her to keep her
eyes closed most of the time.
The cliff, wet and slippery from the preceding storm, was soon slick as
a greased slide. Twice she lost her foothold and would have fallen had
not her sharp cry warned Bill in time. How he managed to stick to his
precarious perch and bear her weight on the rope until she found a grip
on the rock again was more than she could fathom. Each time she slipped
her heart almost stopped beating. And the horrible emptiness at the pit
of her stomach made her feel deathly ill. But she never wholly lost her
nerve. Climbing, then resting, she kept steadily on.
But her strenuous exertions and the almost continuous strain on muscles
ordinarily little used was wearing down her vitality. Would this
terrible climbing in the dark never end, she thought. Her whole body
ached, her arms and legs felt heavy as lead. Wearily she raised her
right hand seeking another hold. When she felt Bill's fingers grasp her
own, she started. The shock very nearly caused her to lose balance.
"Now your other paw," said his well-known voice somewhere above in the
gloom. "That's the way--up you come."
Then before she really understood what was happening, Dorothy was
dragged higher until she was seated beside Bill on a narrow ledge. His
right arm held her tightly. He was puffing like a grampus.
She wriggled and wiped the water and perspiration from her eyes with a
wet, clammy hand.
"Sit tight--old girl," Bill's words came in little jerks. "I know you're
used to altitudes in a plane, but this is different. I guess you'll get
a shock when you look below, so--steady."
Dorothy opened her eyes and was glad of his supporting arm. Far below,
at the foot of the cliff, pinpoints of light moved hither and yon,
puncturing the darkness.
"They know we're somewhere up here," he said softly. "Heard you when you
slipped, I dare say. Well, we'll take some finding--and that's no lie,"
he chuckled.
"Why--I--I--had no idea we'd come so far," she stammered. "Those lights
look miles away."
"Three or four hundred feet, that's all."
"Funny--it makes me almost dizzy to look down there. You're right--it is
different from flying altitude. Bill, do you think they'll find the
chimney?"
"Maybe. But they're not likely to try to use it--not tonight, anyway."
"Why not? We did it."
"We were sure of a way up--they aren't. And I don't imagine they
bargained for any blind climb up cliffs like these in the rain and
darkness. They wouldn't mind slugging one of us with a sand bag, but
when it comes to real danger, they'd count themselves out."
"Gee," Dorothy giggled nervously. "I wish I'd been able to!"
"Count yourself out? Well, I don't blame you, kid. Nerve-wracking isn't
the name for it. But you certainly stood up well. Do you feel able to go
on now?"
"Yes, I suppose so." Her reply was rather weak.
"Then we'd better get under way. Terry said the chimney was the worst of
it and we are through with that now. It ends at this ledge." He helped
her to her feet. "Brrr--that wind is cold on wet clothes. If we don't
get moving, we'll cop a dose of pneumonia, sure as shooting!"
"You're a nice, thoughtful fella, Bill," Dorothy smiled grimly in his
direction. "Trouble is your thoughtfulness is oddly strenuous at times.
Is there much farther to go?"
"We're more than half way," he assured her, "and from now on you'll get
more walking than climbing."
Dorothy wanted to laugh but was too tired to do so.
"Lead on, MacDuffer," she cried gamely. "I'm lame, halt and blind, but
I'll do my best to follow my chief!"
"Atta girl," he commended. "Give us your paw again, we can travel better
that way."
"We'll travel, all right--that is, unless our friend Terry is a
dyed-in-the-wool fabricator."
"Hopefully not, as they say in the Fatherland," he chuckled. He caught
her hand in his and they started on a climb up the steep hill that ran
back from the ledge.
As Bill had predicted, the going here was not nearly so difficult as it
had been in the chimney. So far as Dorothy could tell, the cliffs, which
were covered with a grass-grown rubble, sloped in at this point, and at
a much easier angle of ascent. Whereas the chimney was almost
perpendicular, here, by bending forward and aiding progress with
occasional handholds on bushes and rocky outcroppings, it was possible
to do more than merely creep forward.
A slip, of course, would be dangerous. It would be hard to stop rolling,
once started down the incline; and unless a bush or a boulder were
conveniently in the way, a bound over the ledge would be inevitable--and
then oblivion.
She did not like to think about it. Bill guided her up the incline and
did so with uncanny accuracy, considering the darkness, and the fact
that he had not travelled this trail before. She came to the conclusion
that the worst was over, when he stopped abruptly.
"Sit down and take it easy," he advised. "This is where I've got to see
what we're doing."
"Surely you're not going to show a light?" she asked in alarm, and sank
down on the rocky ground.
"Have to," was his quick reply. "Those guys below us know we're up here,
so what does it matter?"
"But I thought we were almost at the top."
"Almost, but not quite. Look at that!"
A beam of light shot upward from his torch, and turning her head, she
saw a sight that sent her heart down to the very tips of her ragged,
soaking pumps.
They had indeed come to the top; but merely to the top of this steep
hillside of bushes and rubble. Where this ended, a few feet away, the
naked rock towered almost perpendicular. Forty feet or more from its
base this wall jutted sharply outward, half that distance again.
She sprang to her feet, an exclamation of dismay on her lips.
This rock canopy above their heads, this absolutely unscalable barrier
to their hopes extended in both directions so far as the eye could see.
Bill, who had moved several feet downhill, was flashing his light back
and forth along the rugged edge of this roof of rock beneath which she
stood.
"How far does it go?" she asked in a small voice.
"According to Terry," he replied, "right to where the cliffs end--both
ways--and without a break or a tunnel. But you can't walk along
underneath very far, because this slant we are on is only forty or fifty
yards wide. Beyond it in either direction there's a sheer drop."
"Then--we're out of luck." Her tone was entirely hopeless.
Bill laughed shortly. "Where Terry got down, we can get up--but it's not
going to be easy--and that's sure fire!"