A DESPERATE CHANCE.
The other passage proved to be much the same as the one they had tried.
“I hope this doesn’t end in nothing,” muttered Hardware as they made
their way along it.
They took a few steps more when Harry Ware gave a sudden yell of alarm
and surprise.
“W-w-what’s up now?” gasped out Persimmons; but before Harry could
reply both boys found themselves tumbling downward. The bottom appeared
suddenly to have dropped out of the cavern passage.
“We’re lost!” choked out Persimmons as he felt his feet go from under
him.
Neither boy knew anything more till they found themselves lying on the
ground, Persimmons stretched across Hardware’s recumbent body.
“Whew! The second tumble to-day,” gasped out young Simmons, “this place
is as full of holes as a porous plaster. Are you hurt, Harry?” For poor
Hardware had given a groan.
“Yes, that is, I don’t know. Ouch! I’ve bust my ankle, I think.” The
boy gave a loud moan, which rang hollowly against the walls of the
dismal place.
“Is it badly hurt?” gasped Persimmons in a dismayed tone.
“Get up off me and I’ll try to stand up. Give me a hand to rise. That’s
it--wow, but it’s painful!”
“Do you think you can use it, Harry?”
“Y-y-y-yes,” came bravely from poor Hardware, who was suffering
excruciating pain, “but it feels as if a million little dwarfs were
poking needles in it.”
“Lean on me a minute. If we could only find some water, I’d bandage
it. Say, we seem to be the two most unlucky kids on earth!”
“That’s what. I wonder if we’ll ever get out of this?”
Young Simmons made no reply. For the life of him he could not have
found words just at that moment. It was all he could do to choke back
his sobs. He was a plucky enough lad, yet he could hardly be blamed for
feeling a pang of black despair clutching at his heart as he revolved
in his mind their truly desperate situation. After a minute he regained
control of himself, however.
“We’ll light up and have a look around,” he said, as cheerily as he
could. “I want to see what sort of place it is that we’ve dropped in on
so unceremoniously.”
He struck a match; but it was instantly blown out. Both lads now
noticed for the first time that quite a stiff breeze was blowing
against their faces. The air felt fresh and chilly and evidently came
from some opening further along.
“Well, this breeze is a good sign,” declared Hardware; “it means that
this place must open out somewhere along the route.”
“Blithering blizzards, that’s so!” cried young Simmons with a gleam of
his customary cheerfulness. “Do you think you can walk, old man?”
“Oh; I’ll hobble along somehow,” declared Harry Ware bravely.
“Lean on me and that will make it easier. We’ll have to go slow,
though. I’ve a notion that one more drop would finish us.”
“Like aviation liniment,” responded Harry.
“How’s that?”
“One drop is enough,” responded Harry with a chuckle, despite his pain.
Both boys laughed, and somehow, as is often the case, it made them feel
better. As they advanced, cautiously, as you may imagine after their
experiences, the breeze grew stronger till it fanned their faces in a
regular gale. Their clothes had got wet in the Cave of the Rains and
they felt chilled to the bone. But before long a gray light sifted into
the rift which presently opened out above them, and looking up they
could catch a glimpse of the sky.
“Hurray! We’ll soon be out of here now!” cried Harry squeezing his
comrade’s shoulder on which he was leaning heavily.
“I hope so,” was the response, “but hark! what’s that?”
A roaring sound, not unlike that caused by a train rushing through a
tunnel broke on their ears as he spoke.
“Goodness! Sounds like a den of wild beasts!”
But the next instant they found out what it was that caused the roaring
sound, and at the same time experienced a shock of disappointment as
their hope of speedy release was rudely dashed.
The rift terminated abruptly in a sort of rocky basin with steep sides
topped with big trees and brush. The center of this basin was a sort of
whirlpool formed by a stream which rushed in at a fissure at one side
and out of a similar crack in the rocky walls at the other. A groan
fairly forced itself from the lips of both boys as they gazed at the
smooth, steep sides of the rock basin and realized the impossibility of
scaling them, even had Harry’s ankle not been injured.
The stream entered the basin by a small waterfall which tumbled in
a foamy mass over great rocks grown with green moss, and it was the
roaring of this that had caused the odd noise they had heard in the
tunnel.
“Stuck!” was Harry’s exclamation as they stood on the foot-wide strip
of beach on the marge of the pool.
Percy Simmons could only echo his companion’s exclamation. Utterly
disheartened they sank down on the strip of beach, the spray from the
waterfall dashing unnoticed in their faces. For the first time since
the beginning of their misfortunes the two boys were on the verge of
giving way utterly.
How long they sat thus they didn’t know; but it was Harry Ware who
broke the silence. Both boys were chilled to the bone, and their
clothes needed drying. Besides this, an idea had just struck Harry. He
thought that if any search was made for them a column of smoke might be
a good thing to attract attention to their whereabouts, and a good fire
would serve a double purpose.
The beach was littered with all sorts of drift wood, from big logs to
small sticks that the stream had brought down probably during a spring
freshet and which had lodged there.
When he had succeeded in rousing Percy from his lethargy of despair,
Harry limped briskly about, helping his companion build a roaring
fire. The heat was grateful to their chilled skins, and taking off
their outer garments they spread them out to dry. It was while they
were sitting thus, discussing their situation with more cheerfulness
than hitherto they had been able to muster, that Harry’s attention
was caught by a partridge sitting on a hemlock limb that overhung the
rocky basin on their side. Raising his rifle, which had survived all
accidents, he fired at it, and rather to his surprise the bird came
tumbling down, landing almost at their feet.
“Come on, we’ll have some broiled partridge, bread and chocolate,” he
cried, addressing the woebegone Persimmons. “It’s no good starving,
even if we are in a tight fix.”
He skinned and cleaned the bird and then broiled it on a flat rock
which he had previously heated in the fire. The two boys ate the bird
hungrily, although it was not at all overdone, being half raw, in fact.
But their appetites were too keen to be discriminating, and after
despatching it and eating some of their moist bread and chocolate they
felt much better.
By this time it was midafternoon. Their clothes were dry and after
putting them on again, they seated themselves on the margin of the pool
and discussed their plight.
“If only we had a boat!” mused Harry, after some discussion.
“Jumping jellyfish, you’re right there, Harry,” exclaimed Persimmons;
“but just the same why don’t you wish for an airship while you are at
it?”
“Because we can’t get an airship and we _can_ have a boat.”
“What! Have you gone crazy?”
“Never more serious in my life. I mean what I say.”
“What, that we’ve got a boat?”
“No; what I mean is, that we can make one.”
“Go on,” said Persimmons, staring at his companion as if to make sure
that he was in possession of his right senses.
“It’s no use looking at me like that, Perce. I’m quite in earnest. The
only question is, if we make the boat, have you nerve enough to ride on
it?”
“I’d ride on anything to get out of this place. I wish that eagle up
yonder would come down and offer to carry me out. You’d see how quick
I’d take him up. But honest, Harry, do you mean what you say?”
“Surely. See that old log over there? That one with the rope dangling
from it?”
“Yes,” rejoined his companion anticipatively.
“Well, I reckon it drifted from some old lumber camp or other and the
rope came with it. However, that’s not the point. The rope is on it and
we can ride on it out of this pool through that rift in the rocks.”
“But the log will roll over with us.”
“That’s just where the rope comes in. We’ll lash two of the logs
together and then take our chances. If we get spilled, why we can both
swim and I’m pretty sure that outside this pool we can find a bank to
land on.”
“Inventive Indians! You’re a wonder, Harry. I’d never have thought
of that in a hundred years. Come on, let’s get busy. The sun must be
getting pretty low, and if we do get out we’ve got a long hike back
to camp. I think”--he broke off abruptly. “I forgot your ankle,” he
exclaimed, “you can’t walk far on that.”
“No, but you can leave me some place and get help. That part will be
all right. The main thing is to reach some place from which you can
strike back to camp.”
“That’s right. Well, let’s get busy and lash two of the logs together
and then try to chute the chutes.”
A log of about the size of the stick of lumber to which the rope was
attached was secured and rolled alongside it on the shelving beach. By
using smaller logs as levers the boys raised the large ones and lashed
them together as firmly as they could, so as to form a sort of raft.
The rope, on testing proved to be lamentably old and rotten; but the
lads were not by this time in a mood to be critical. They were crazy to
escape from their rock-walled _cul-de-sac_, and would have been willing
to dare almost anything that held out even a remote hope of relief.
At length all was ready, and using their levers they got their crude
raft into the water. Then they selected two poles which they thought
might come in handy to shove the craft off any obstructions that it
might strike. This done, they were ready to make their adventurous dash.
“All ready?” asked Harry, wading out into the water.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” was the reply.
“Get aboard then.”
Without further words both boys scrambled upon the lashed logs and
shoved off with their poles. The next instant the raft was in deep
water. An eddy caught it, whirling it swiftly into the middle of the
pool.
“Wow! But it’s swifter than I thought,” gasped Harry, as a wave swept
over the raft.
His companion did not reply. At the instant he was poling hard to keep
the raft from being swept against a rock, for he knew that the force of
a collision would, in all likelihood, cause the logs to break apart.
For a second the raft swung round dizzily, waves and spray breaking
over it and drenching the boys afresh. The next minute it was caught in
the main current of the stream and, like a flash, it shot through the
rocky rift of the basin and was hurtled down a passage between steep
cliffs, through which the waters boiled like a mill race.
There was no opportunity to speak. The raft was rushed onward with
almost the speed of an express train. Sick and dizzy from the violent
motion, drenched through, and thoroughly frightened, the two boys could
only crouch close and hang on for dear life. Once a sudden lurch
almost caused Harry to roll off, but young Simmons caught him in the
nick of time.
All at once, above the roar of the waters that shot along through the
rocky chasm, there came a deeper diapason--a loud, thunderous sound
that proceeded from right ahead of them. Louder it grew and louder,
till its deafening uproar drowned out all other sounds.
“What is it?” shouted Harry at the top of his lungs, but to his comrade
his voice sounded like a whisper.
Then came a sudden shout from young Simmons who had raised his head and
glanced beyond the plunging, dizzily swaying raft.
“Great goodness! We’re being swept toward a waterfall. Get out the
poles.”
“Pole off! Pole off!” yelled Harry, forgetting his ankle and seizing up
his pole as he rose to his feet.
At the same instant there was a cracking, rending sound, and the two
boys were swept asunder on separate logs.
The raft had parted under the strain and they were carried helplessly
toward the waterfall of unknown height that boomed and thundered ahead
of them.
[Illustration: Then came a plunge into a breathless abyss.--_Page
171._]