"Good!" approved Lige encouragingly, beginning to let the rawhide slip slowly around the trunk of the tree. As he did so, Tad felt himself gradually sinking into the sombre depths.
He tilted his head to look up. The movement sent his body swaying giddily from side to side.
Cautiously placing a hand against the rocks to steady himself, Tad wisely concluded that hereafter it would not pay to be too curious.
"Hold a torch over the edge of the cliff, Master Ned," directed the guide. "Better lie down so you, too, don"t take a notion to fall off. Keep your eyes shut till I tell you to open them."
Slowly, but steadily, the slender line was paid out, amid a tense silence on the part of the little group at the top of the canyou. After what seemed to them hours, a sharp call from the depths reached their ears.
Lige quickly made fast the line to a tree.
"Yes? Got him?" he answered, leaning over the cliff.
"I see him," called Tad, his voice sounding hollow and unnatural to those above. "He"s so far to the right of me that I can"t reach him. Will it be all right for me to swing myself?"
"Where is he?"
"Lodged in the branches of a pinyon tree, I think it is. But he doesn"t answer me."
"Wait a minute," cautioned the mountaineer.
Lige searched until he found a limb some three inches in diameter, and this he placed under the rope so as to relieve the strain of the rock upon it, that there might be no danger of the leather being sawed in two by contact with the ledge.
"All right. Now try it."
The creaking of the rawhide told them that Tad Butler was swaying from side to side, fifty feet below them, at the end of a slender line. Lige, leaning over the brink, was able to follow the boy"s movements by the aid of the thin arc of light made by the torch in Tad"s hand.
At last, the thread of light contracted into a point, and the watching guide knew that the courageous boy had finally reached the pinyon tree.
Then followed a long period of suspense. But from the cautious movements of the light far below them, the guide understood that the lad was at work carrying out his part of the task of rescue to the best of his ability.
"Why doesn"t he say something?" cried the Professor, unable to restrain his impatience longer, his overwrought nerves almost at the breaking point.
"Keep still! Don"t bother him. The boy"s doing the best he can. Mebby you think he"s having some sort of a picnic down there, eh?" glared Lige.
"A--l--l right!"
Tad"s voice, now strong and clear, rose from the depths of the canyou.
"Shall we haul up?" asked Lige, making a megaphone of his hands.
"Yes; haul away. Tell them Walt"s all right. He can talk now," was the answer that carried with it such a note of gladness that Ned and Stacy were unable to resist a shout of joy.
"Lend a hand here," commanded Lige, taking firm hold of the line, and stepping to the edge that he might command both ends of the operation. "Are you all safe down there, Tad?"
"Sure thing!" answered the boy.
Very slowly, restraining their inclination to haul the rope in with all speed only because the warning eyes of the guide were upon them, the two boys, a.s.sisted by Professor Zepplin, began hoisting Walter Perkins toward the top.
In a few moments the sinewy hands of the guide gripped Walter by an arm and dragged him safely to the table rock.
Walter had fully regained consciousness by this time, and a brief examination showed that he had sustained no serious injury, he having struck on the yielding branches of the pinyon, which broke his fall and saved his life. Beyond sundry bruises, a black eye and a thin crimson line on the right cheek where a branch had raked it, Walter Perkins was practically unharmed after his perilous experience.
But it was a trying moment for Tad Butler, down there alone in the branches of the pinyon tree, with fifty feet of nothingness beneath him and a sheer wall that extended an equal distance above him.
Nor was his sense of security increased when, in shifting his position, the torch fell from his grasp, the f.a.gots scattering as they slipped down between the limbs of the tree and whirling in ever-diminishing circles until finally he heard them clatter on the rocks below.
The boy could not repress a shudder. Closing his eyes, he clung to the slender support with grim courage until a hail from above told him that the rawhide loop was rapidly squirming down toward him.
This time Lige had allowed for his mistaken reckoning when Tad had first descended, and the boy grasped eagerly at the leather as he felt it gently slap against his cheek.
A few moments more, and he, too, had been hauled safely to the top, amid the wild cheers of his companions and the congratulations of the guide and Professor Zepplin.
CHAPTER IX
RIFLES AND PONIES
After having been well rubbed down by the guide, and given a steaming cup of tea, Walter was put to bed, protesting stubbornly that he was all right and that their attentions were unnecessary.
But Lige Thomas was firm.
"You"ll be that lame, to-morrow, you can"t reach a stirrup. I want you to be fit, for we have a long journey ahead of us."
Walter soon fell into a deep sleep, while Tad and Ned, too full of the events of the night to go to sleep at once, sat by the camp fire discussing the stirring scenes through which they had so recently pa.s.sed, until the deep, rhythmic snores of Stacy Brown reminded them that they, too, should seek their pine bough cots if they intended to get any more rest that night.
Next morning the camp slept late in spite of itself--that is, all save Lige Thomas. He was up with the sun, busying himself with getting the outfit ready for a prompt start.
At nine o"clock the guide routed them out, and the boys, after washing themselves in the cool, refreshing waters of a little mountain stream, announced themselves as ready to eat anything that might be placed before them.
Walter, still pale from his recent experience, but smiling happily, took his place with the rest and ate as heartily as they did of the crisp bacon that Jose had prepared.
"Now that you young gentleman are all together, it"s a good time to give you some advice," said Lige.
"Guess I"m the one who needs it most," laughed Walter.
"He"s had his already," chuckled Chunky Brown.
"But yours is still coming to you," added Ned maliciously.
"You must keep in mind that these mountains are full of danger,"
continued the guide. "Even an experienced mountaineer sometimes goes wrong, losing his life as the result. So, before any one of you takes a step, be sure that your foot is going to land on something solid. As we get up into the Park Range you will find the country rougher, and still more caution will be necessary. But you"re going to be all right. You boys have the right sort of stuff in you. Not many fellows of Master Tad"s age would have had the courage to do what he did last night."
Tad Butler flushed a rosy red, and devoted his attention to his bacon.