A FIGHT
His words were mystifying. Then the other three noticed that the rancher
had turned his gaze toward the distant pass which guarded Headless
Hollow. Far above them, on the high cliffs, they saw two struggling men.
“Walz and Joe Hansart!” Jack exclaimed. “They’re fighting.”
The watchers below were too far away to see the struggle plainly. It was
apparent, though, what had happened. Evidently Walz had attempted to
leave the valley with his sack of sample gold, and Joe Hansart had
caught him. Now the two were locked in a death struggle. As the
Explorers watched in horror, the two men fought close to the edge of the
cliffs.
“They’ll kill each other, if we don’t stop them!” Mr. Livingston
exclaimed.
At a run, he and the others started for the pass.
The trail, such as it was, wound in a gradual climb. Jack and Ken tried
the steeper, direct route. Even so, they were less than a third of the
way up to the cliff when they heard a hoarse, frightened shout.
Joe Hansart, despite his age, had overpowered his adversary. Inch by
inch, he crowded him to the edge of the precipice. Walz rocked back and
forth on the ledge, fighting for his life. Beneath him yawned the chasm.
The end of that desperate struggle was inevitable.
Walz’ boot went over the slanting rock. He tried wildly to regain a
foothold, but could not. As he fell, he held fast to the old man,
pulling him along.
Locked in each other’s arms, the two men fell to a ledge fifteen or
twenty feet below. There they struck bushes which in part broke their
fall. Then over and over they rolled, to the bottom of the long slope.
“What an end!” Ken gasped, shuddering.
Peering over the cliff, Jack saw Walz move one of his hands. It revived
his hope that the motel owner at least might have survived the long
drop.
“Quick!” he cried. “A rope!”
Ken went as fast as he could back to the cabin. Without waiting, Jack
scrambled down the steep slope.
He lost his footing almost at once and rolled. He managed to break the
fall with his hands, and brought himself to a stop, unhurt, not far from
the two injured men.
Joe Hansart, he saw at a glance, was the more seriously injured. The old
man lay in a crumpled heap, bleeding from a head wound. Walz was
conscious, though in a state of semi-shock.
“Help me,” he whimpered. “Help me. My leg is broken.”
Ignoring Walz for the moment, Jack checked Joe Hansart’s bleeding. The
wound was superficial. The old man, however, was pale, and his lips were
blue. His pulse was weak and rapid. He drew breath irregularly and with
difficulty.
“Take it easy,” Jack advised. “Help is on the way.”
He moved the old man so that his head lay downhill. He was relieved to
see that this position restored Joe’s color a trifle and improved his
pulse, but he saw that the prospector was quivering from shock and
chill. Stripping off his jacket, he covered the old man.
Leaving him for the moment, he turned his attention to the whimpering
motel owner.
“I’m dying,” Walz moaned. “The pain is horrible. Do something!”
It was plain to see that the motel owner’s left leg was broken.
Possibly, too, he had suffered some internal injuries. Jack, however,
was inclined to doubt it, for Walz, now that he had partially recovered
from the stunning impact, was becoming talkative.
“Don’t move,” Jack advised the moaning fellow. “Lie still until we can
splint that leg.”
Walz, disregarding the order, tried to pull himself to a sitting
position. The effort brought new pain.
“That fool has done for me,” he moaned. “I’ll never get back to Elks
Creek.”
“After the way you left Warner and me trapped in the mine, you don’t
deserve any help,” Jack said. “We ought to leave you here to suffer.”
His words were not meant to be serious. Walz nevertheless considered
them so.
“Don’t leave me here,” he begged. “I can’t walk a step. I’d never get
back to Elks Creek alive. You must help me!”
“And if we do?”
“I’ll give you a share of the gold,” Walz whispered. “I swear it. I did
wrong to take the map.”
“What about the way you left us in the mine?”
“I meant to send help to you as soon as I reached Elks Creek,” Walz
mumbled.
Jack had his own opinion on this matter, but he let it pass.
“You wanted the gold from the very first,” he said. “It was you, wasn’t
it, who broke into Old Stony’s cabin back in Rocking Horse? You beat him
when he woke up and found you trying to steal the map!”
The motel owner’s lips trembled, for he was not willing to answer.
“And it was you,” Jack went on, “who stole Stony’s nuggets from the bag
of pinto beans. If you want any help, admit the truth.”
“Am I going to die?” Walz asked, his voice quavering.
“You’re miles from a doctor,” Jack reminded him. “Unless we can get help
to you, the situation is bad.”
“I’m going to die,” Walz groaned. “I—I may as well tell you the truth
and get it off my conscience.”
“You slugged Old Stony?”
“It was an accident. I went to the cabin, hoping to get the map—yes, I
admit that. The old man woke up and tried to stop me. I flew into a rage
and hit him. Then I ran.”
“Old Stony never knew it was you who tried to rob him,” Jack said. “You
can be thankful for that.”
“I felt terrible about it,” Walz sobbed. “I didn’t mean to hurt Stony.
Why, I liked the old duffer. I gave him a good home. I fed and clothed
him.”
“It was the thought of gold that turned you against him.”
“And I found the gold too,” Walz whispered. “It meant to me more than
anything else. Now I’ve lost everything.”
By this time Mr. Livingston and Warner had reached the site of the
accident. Ken soon came with the rope and first-aid supplies.
While Mr. Livingston made a splint for Walz’ leg, the others improvised
a stretcher. They bound Joe Hansart to it, and by dint of great labor
and ingenuity they finally carried him down to the valley floor and from
there to the cabin.
Meanwhile, the Scout leader had made Walz fairly comfortable. Gradually,
as it dawned upon the motel owner that he might not die, he lapsed into
sullen silence.
It was only after he too had been transported to the cabin that he began
to deny his previous statements.
“I was out of my head,” he muttered to Jack. “If I said anything about
harming Old Stony, it was the bunk. I don’t have any idea who broke into
his cabin at Rocking Horse.”
Jack and his friends avoided discussing the subject further. Once they
reached a town, they intended to turn Walz over to the authorities. To
get out of the valley, however, was their first problem.
“We’re in a bad spot,” Warner admitted, drawing the others aside for a
serious conference. “Both of those men need a doctor.”
“Hansart, especially,” Mr. Livingston added. “He has scarcely opened his
eyes since we got him here. We need food and medical supplies.”
“There’s only one thing to do,” Warner decided. “Something has happened
to the Forest Service plane, I’m afraid. I’ll start right away for Elks
Creek. The only thing—I hate to leave you alone here with two injured
men.”
“We’ll make out,” the Scout leader assured him. “Wait a few hours,
though, before you start. If I know Willie and War, they won’t let us
down.”
Ken and Jack set out the signal cloth near the lake, hoping that any
pilot flying that way would see it. Several hours elapsed.
The day was clear, with very little wind. Conditions were nearly perfect
for flying, yet no plane appeared over the mountains.
“Something must have happened to Willie and War,” Mr. Livingston
declared, pacing nervously up and down. “Otherwise, help would have
reached us by now.”
“They’ve had plenty of time to get through,” Warner agreed. “To wait and
hope any longer is foolish.”
Without further discussion, he gathered his gear together. Jack and Ken
walked with him toward the trail to the pass.
“I’ll make as fast a trip as I can,” he promised.
A bright glare was on the jagged mountain peaks. Staring toward the
pass, Jack thought he saw a small moving speck in the sky. He rubbed his
eyes. Imagination, he told himself, for he had given up hope that the
plane would come.
Then Ken let out an excited shout. He too had seen the moving object
against the dark mountainside.
“It’s coming this way!” Craig Warner cried, dropping his pack.
For a few brief moments, the trio watched anxiously. Would the plane
turn back as it had done on the previous occasion?
Warner finally identified it: “It’s a Forest Service ship, with
pontoons. Boys, I think it’s heading straight for the lake.”
Fearful that the pilot might miss the cabin area or falsely conclude
that no one remained there, the three made all haste back to the lake.
By the time they arrived there, breathless from running, the roar of the
powerful engines could be heard distinctly. Hap Livingston had come
hurrying out of the cabin. Anxiously the four waited, waving their arms.
Their signals were unnecessary. As the plane made a practice run, the
watchers knew that help had arrived. In fact, as the Forest Service ship
dropped closer, Jack was able to recognize War and Willie riding with
the pilot.
Again the plane circled. Down fluttered a parachute with packages of
food attached. It hit the ground about a hundred feet from where the
Scouts stood. Ken and Jack ran to retrieve it.
“This will be a help,” Ken declared jubilantly. “But we need
medicines—and a doctor.”
Working fast, Mr. Livingston and Craig Warner ripped up the signal cloth
into two flags. These the Scout leader attached to sticks. With the
improvised wigwag device, he then began sending the message:
“TWO MEN BADLY HURT. NEED MORE HELP.”
Over and over, he repeated the message. Whether or not the flags could
be correctly interpreted from above, those on the ground had no way of
knowing. The plane, however, kept circling. Finally, the pilot dipped
the wings in signal.
“They got it!” Ken cried.
The watchers expected the plane to turn and head back toward its base.
Instead, it kept circling.
“The pilot is going to try a landing on the lake!”
Warner exclaimed. “He can get in, all right, but will he ever be able to
take off again?”
The seaplane came in low, skimmed above the willows, and made a smooth
landing. Jack, Ken, and the two men waded out to meet their rescuers.
“You read my wigwag!” Mr. Livingston exclaimed, embracing first Willie
and then War, who splashed out into the shallow water.
“Couldn’t get a reading except on one word—‘HELP’,” Willie admitted. “We
knew something was really wrong, though, so we risked a landing.”
“Why did you turn back on your first trip here?” Ken demanded.
“Engine trouble,” War explained briefly. “Just as we came in sight of
the pass, we had to turn and go back to the base. What’s wrong here?”
“Quite a bit,” Mr. Livingston replied. “We have two men on our
hands—both badly hurt. We ought to get them to a hospital without
delay.”
After the seaplane had been anchored so that a wayward wind would not
dash it against rocks, the group went into serious conference.
The pilot, Dave Fallouby, was confident he could get his ship into the
air again, if it was not too heavily loaded. However, he could safely
carry only three passengers. It was decided that Walz, Hansart, and Mr.
Livingston should make the return flight with him, and that the four
Scouts with Craig Warner would go back to Elks Creek afoot by easy
stages.
Accordingly, the two injured men were carried by stretcher and propped
with blankets as comfortably as possible in the plane. Mr. Livingston
was the last to climb aboard.
“We’ll rendezvous at the Elks Creek Hotel,” he said. “Take it easy,
boys, on the trail.”
Nervously, the four Scouts and Craig Warner watched as the pilot stepped
up the motors. The lake was small. If Dave failed to gather speed
rapidly, he might crash into the rocks or willows.
With a mighty roar, the seaplane ploughed through the waves. Its
pontoons lifted slightly, only to drop again into the water.
“Too heavily loaded!” Willie groaned.
“Dave will make it,” Warner said confidently.
A moment later the plane cleared the water. It skimmed along barely
above the lake for a distance.
“Climb—climb!” Jack muttered, his fists clenched.
The plane cleared the rocks at the far end of the lake. Everyone took a
deep, relieved breath.
Twice the ship circled after attaining safe altitude. Mr. Livingston
waved to reassure the Scouts that all was well. Then the plane headed
over the blue mountains and soon was lost in the distance.