As it was dark, the boys had not been able to see what the cow-puncher had done, so it was not till long afterward that they found out the meaning of his remark and learned of his courageous action.
The cow-puncher feared that the sudden drop and the danger of the rope breaking again under the renewed strain might have frightened Tubby into a swoon. To his intense joy, however, in reply to his hail there came up a cheerful:
"Say, what are you fellows doing? Having a game up there? You almost jolted the daylights out of me."
"All right, we"ll be more careful in future, Tubby," breathed the puncher, not daring to tell the boy what had actually happened.
"Are you near the ledge, Tubby?" hailed the puncher suddenly, after an interval of hauling.
"Yes, I think so. I can see a dark thing like a shelf right above me."
"Stop!" shouted the cow-puncher to the rope handlers.
The most difficult part of the enterprise was yet to come. They had to get the boy up on the ledge. To accomplish this at first was a poser, but Blinky finally solved it. Enjoining the rope handlers not to make a move till he hailed them, he slipped down the stone steps and reached the ledge. Arrived there, he peered over into the black void under his feet. Swinging a short distance below, he could distinguish a blacker object than the surrounding night. He could also make out a sound of humming. It was Tubby crooning to himself as he swung on the end of the frail rope:
"See-saw! see-saw!
On a s-um-mers day!"
"Well, I"ll be extra special, double-jiggered!" breathed the puncher, as he heard.
He knelt on the edge of the ledge and spoke to the vocalist.
"How"s your nerve, Tubby?"
"Fine, but it needs feeding," was the cheerful response.
"All right, you"ll do," rejoined the cow-puncher. "Now, then, Tubby, I want you to hang to the edge of this ledge by your finger tips for just two minutes. Think you can do it?"
"I"ll have to, won"t I?" innocently inquired the stout youth.
"Yes, or----"
"Take a tumble," Tubby finished for him.
"Never mind about that," spoke Blinky sharply. Then cupping his hands to his mouth, he shouted upward:
"Haul away! Slow, now!"
He placed his fingers on the taut rope and felt it slip upward through them.
"Good old ropes," he murmured; "stretched like a fiddle string and sound as a ship"s cable."
Presently Tubby was hauled up level with the ledge.
"Stop!" roared Blinky.
He could have reached over in the darkness, and, catching the stout boy"s hands, have hauled him up beside him--he could have, that is if Tubby had been able to a.s.sist him by digging his feet into the rock face. But this he could not do, as he was dangling from the lip of the ledge, fully three feet out from the face of the precipice, and with four hundred feet of empty s.p.a.ce under the soles of his shoes. Moreover, in such case the cow-puncher would have nothing to brace himself with, and there would have been grave danger of his being dragged over by the other"s suspended weight. Instead, therefore--necessity being the mother of invention--he had thought up a daring plan. What this was we shall soon see.
"Can you grip the edge with your fingers, Tubby?" whispered the cow-puncher.
"Yes," rejoined Tubby, reaching up.
"All right, then, grab it--and in Heaven"s name, hold on!"
With a single swift stroke of his knife, the cow-puncher slashed the rope, leaving Tubby with the loop draped uselessly under his shoulders.
The fat boy"s hold on the edge of the ledge was all that now lay between him and eternity.
Blinky"s breath came sharp and hard as he rapidly adjusted the rope around himself just under the shoulders. Then leaning forward, he seized the stout boy"s wrists in his steel-muscled grip.
"Haul!" he bellowed.
The line tautened just as the cow-puncher braced his muscles.
"Stop!"
The line became motionless, holding the cow-puncher firmly on the ledge, while his hands gripped Tubby"s wrists.
"Now," breathed Blinky to himself, bracing every muscle till they seemed to crack. The sweat rolled down his face, and his features became contorted. Tubby was a heavier load than he had bargained for. But pluck and grit won out, and after a few seconds of this t.i.tanic struggle the stout boy stood safe on the ledge beside his rescuer.
"Got him!" muttered Blinky triumphantly. But even as he spoke he almost lost the rescued boy. All at once Tubby became as limp as a half-emptied sack of grain, and seemed about to slide backward out of the cow-puncher"s arms.
"Hey, hold on, there! What"s the matter?" roared Blinky in amazement, dragging him back.
"Gone out, by the great horn spoon!" he exclaimed, as the rescued boy sank heavily in a dead swoon on the ledge beside his rescuer.
CHAPTER XIII.
A FRIEND IN NEED.
"Hum!" said Rob to himself, with an accent of deep conviction.
"Evidently these chaps keep a closer watch on their prisoner than I had imagined. I guess I"d better retire to my boudoir again."
The Indian sentinel lowered his rifle as the boy turned, and eyed him stoically without any more expression on his stolid features than would have shown on the features of a mask.
"All right," Rob said to him, nodding cheerfully. "Don"t worry about me, old chap. I"m going to bed."
If the Indian understood, he made no sign. Instead, he wheeled and solemnly followed the boy back to the tepee. Rob entered it and lay down. Presently, to his delight, some blankets were thrown in to him.
"Well, if I can"t eat I can sleep, anyhow," he said philosophically, and in a few minutes he was curled up in the coverings and off as soundly as if he was slumbering in a cot at the ranch house.
It was dawn when Rob awoke, as he speedily became aware when the tent flap was thrown open, and he saw facing him a rather pretty young Indian girl who bore in her hand an earthenware dish.
"Hullo!" said Rob, sitting up in his blankets.
"Hullo," rejoined the girl in a more friendly tone than Rob had yet heard in the Indian camp.