CHAPTER XIII
AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BOWL
Jack and Frank stood at the edge of the Devil’s Punch Bowl with their hearts beating wildly, listening for the dreaded sound which they knew must come from below. However, no such sound came, and presently they found the courage to cast their eyes down the steep incline.
Far down, at the very bottom of the pit, lying close to the edge of the pool of water which had been observed before, they saw Harry, lying perfectly motionless. He had fallen at least a hundred feet.
“It’s terrible!” Frank faltered. “I wish we had never come into the mountains! I wish we had never seen California.”
“He may not be dead,” suggested Jack.
“Not dead!” repeated Frank. “Not dead after a fall like that?”
“I’m not going to give up hope until I’m sure!” Jack answered stoutly.
The two boys stood for a moment gazing down the tremendous fall, and then cast their eyes over the landscape in every direction.
“What are you looking for?” asked Jack.
“Something that will help us lower into the pit.”
“If we only had a long rope,” Jack wailed.
“Well, we haven’t got any long rope,” Frank replied, “and we’ve just got to get down there. We’ve got to find a way.”
“I have been thinking,” Jack stated after a moment’s thought, “that we might possibly work our way downward by circling about the pit.”
“You mean wind ourselves down like a cork-screw?” asked Frank.
“That’s it exactly!”
“Why, the walls are almost perpendicular!” Frank asserted. “We never can get down there in the world!”
“Then we’ll have to hasten back to camp and get a rope,” said Jack.
“I just can’t go away and leave Harry lying there like that!” exclaimed Frank. “I just can’t do it. We’ve got to get down into that devil’s hole in some way. It may be difficult but we’ve got to do it.”
“If we could only get over to the other side,” Jack said, “we might be able to work our way down a part of the distance. It seems to me that the rock is rougher there, and the side not quite so steep.”
“It does look that way,” Frank answered, “and I think we’d better try to get over there. It will help some, even if we can’t get clear to the bottom. We can at least find out whether Harry is alive.”
“I’ll never leave him lying there, alive or dead!” exclaimed Jack.
The boys at once set out on a difficult journey toward the far side of the Devil’s Punch Bowl. In many places they had only a rim of rock less than six inches in diameter for a foot-hold. On one side, hundreds of feet above them stretched the snow-covered summit, while on the other side lay the precipice dipping into the Devil’s Punch Bowl. At last, after great exertion and very many narrow escapes, the boys reached the desired location and looked about.
“We ought to be able to get down from this side,” Frank said. “You stand here at the top of the rim and let me down arm’s length. You see that shelf there? Oh, it’s not more than two inches wide,” the boy went on, as Jack looked his astonishment, “but I can stand on it all right by leaning against the face of the wall.
“Well, I can reach that with my toes if you’ll let me down steadily. Then you drop down the full length of your arms and I’ll keep you from falling when you strike the ledge. There are other ledges below and so we may be able to get clear to the bottom.”
“I’m afraid!” Jack said. “I’m afraid I’ll push you off the ledge when I drop down.”
“We’ve got to take the chance!” Frank returned. “We’ve just got to take the chance, and that’s all there is to it. We can’t let Harry lie there. We’re going to get him out, alive or dead.”
“All right!” Jack said. “Drop your legs inside the pit and catch hold of my hands and I’ll let you down. We can only try!”
It was indeed a desperate undertaking. The walls of the Devil’s Punch Bowl, as all who have ever visited that section understand, are almost perpendicular three-fourths of the way down. Then they form almost a perfect bowl—at least, the bottom of a perfect bowl. In the center of this bowl lies, or did lie at that time, a pool of clear, pure water.
For an instant Frank groped blindly, his feet swinging out into the awful chasm, and then he found the ledge which he had mentioned. He looked up to see Jack looking with face red from exertion over the rim.
“Now, chum,” he said, “swing yourself in and slide down. The eighty per cent slope will throw your weight away from the pit and I’ll keep you from tumbling backwards when you strike the ledge.”
“That ledge doesn’t look very solid to me,” Jack suggested.
“You couldn’t break it with an axe!” replied Frank. “It is safe enough, and the slope will keep your body on the ledge if you don’t get scared. Now go to it, old boy!”
Frank talked bravely enough, but he held his breath as Jack came sliding down. When the boy’s feet struck the ledge, he certainly would have tumbled backward into the pit if Frank had not thrown one arm against him. The boys looked at each other for a moment without speaking. They fully understood the peril they were in, yet they tried to be cheerful, each seeking to belittle the danger to the other.
“There,” Frank said lightly, “that was easy enough. We’ll never get any medals for doing an easy stunt like that.”
“Of course, it was easy,” Jack answered, “and the next ledge is not so far away and is broader. We’ll have to slide down there together side by side and then if you fall, I can give you a lift, and you can do the same for me. I don’t think we’re going to have so much trouble with this old hole after all. Lots of things look easy after the start.”
“That’s always the way in this gay old world of ours,” Frank answered, “all you got to do is to face a dreaded thing and half its terror is lost.”
The next ledge was easily reached, but was not so safe as the other, the edge having crumbled away to some extent. In fact, the boys slid off a great deal quicker than they would otherwise have done, as the rock under their feet gave indications of dropping.
And so, working their way from ledge to ledge, sometimes at the peril of their lives, sometimes finding the way fairly safe and easy, the boys reached a point not more than twenty feet from the spot where their unconscious chum was lying.
“Now,” Jack said as they stood on the last ledge and looked into the clear pool below, “we’ve got to slide down here like we were going down a chute. The chances are that we won’t have any neat uniforms when we get to the bottom, and the possibility is that we’ll be good and wet by the time we make our way out of that pool.”
“I’m not going into that pool!” Frank declared. “It’s colder than Greenland up here now, and if we get wet we’ll be frozen stiff in half an hour. We can’t do Harry any good by going to him in a condition calling for nurses and hot drinks.”
“I don’t know how you’re going to help tumbling into the pool!” Jack answered. “It lies not more than twenty feet from the bottom of the incline.”
“I’ll show you how!” Frank declared. “All you’ve got to do is to slide down on your little empty tummy and wear your fingers up to the second or third joint digging into the rocks.”
“I ain’t going to wear out any fingers!” Jack insisted. “You remember that great big jack-knife? The one you said ought to cause my arrest for carrying concealed weapons? Well, I’ve got that jack-knife with me right now. I’m going to break the big blade off short and dig into the rock with that all the way down!”
“What do you want to break the blade off for?” asked Frank.
“So I can get my hand close to the point of contact without cutting my fingers off,” replied Jack.
“I wish I had a knife like that,” Frank said, regretfully.
“Well,” Jack proposed in a moment, “we can bunch in together and each one can have a hand on the knife. Say, but won’t that be a jolly proposition? Wearing out a perfectly good Boy Scout uniform on the dirty old rocks of the Devil’s Punch Bowl?”
“Any way to get down to the bottom!” Frank declared.
The plan figured out by Jack worked to perfection, and the boys reached the edge of the pool without tumbling in. Still, however, they were not within reach of the spot where their chum was lying.
During all this time, Harry had shown not the slightest evidence of life. Crumpled up as from a fatal blow, the boy lay exactly in the position into which he had fallen.
“We made the slide on the down-grade, all right. Now I wish we could slide up over the spur that separates us from the side of the pool where Harry is,” Jack said.
“All we’ve got to do is to climb,” Frank answered. “I never saw any ledge of rock, or any body of water, or any trouble of any kind, that you could wish yourself over.”
“And the sooner we get there, the better!” Jack declared.
The boys were very pale now, for the time was near at hand when they were to know the truth concerning the condition of their chum.
They made their way over the spur which shot out of the lower wall and down to the pool with no little difficulty, and at last stood at the edge of the water where Harry lay, his face turned upward to the sky, his arms lying limply at his sides.
The boys hesitated an instant before bending over him.
“I’m afraid!” Jack whispered.
“I’m afraid, too!” Frank replied, covering for an instant his face with his hands. “I’m afraid he’s dead!”
Then Jack bent closer and fixed his eyes keenly on the boy’s face.
“Say!” he said excitedly. “Look here, Frank, Harry is actually breathing! He may not be fatally wounded after all!”
Frank shook his head but hastened to the pool of water and brought back as much as his hat would hold. This he threw into the face of the prostrate boy and then both stood waiting and watching with their hearts beating wildly.
“He’s coming to!” shouted Frank in a moment. “He certainly is coming to! Now what do you think of that after a tumble of a hundred feet!”
“It couldn’t have been a straight drop!” Jack declared. “He would have been smashed all to flinders!”
“Don’t mention it,” Frank cried, “you give me the shivers!”
Directly Harry’s eyes opened and he looked painfully about.
“Hello, old Scout!” shouted Frank.
“Are you getting hungry?” demanded Jack.
A faint smile flickered over the face of the injured lad, and he closed his eyes again.
“I’m going to know something more about this!” Jack insisted. “Can you hear, Harry?” he asked after a short pause.
Harry nodded and Jack took him tenderly by one leg.
“Yell, when I hurt,” he said.
He moved the limb up and down, sideways, too, but only a smile came to the boy’s lips. That leg was evidently all right.
“Now for the other one!” Jack declared hopefully. “If I hurt you just give me a kick with your well hoof!”
That leg was all right, too. In a moment, Harry stirred one arm faintly and then lifted it to his face.
“And one arm’s all right, too!” almost shouted Frank. “Say, kid,” he continued, “how did you ever negotiate that tumble and not get broken into little pieces?”
Harry opened his eyes again and smiled faintly.
“I slid down most of the way,” he said. “My left arm is broken, and I’ve got a bump on my dome big enough to hide a cow in, but I guess that’s about all. How’s that for luck?”
“Luck?” repeated Jack. “If you’d fall into the Polar sea, you’d find a pot of boiling water!”
“I won’t believe you’re all right except one broken arm,” Frank insisted, “until I see you sitting up and taking notice.”
Harry sat up weakly and looked around.
“Well,” he said in a feeble voice, “you boys got down here all right. Now, how are you ever going to get out?”
CHAPTER XIV
A BIT OF ENGINEERING
“You’re right, there, Harry!” Frank answered. “You stated the question before the house correctly!”
“Oh, we’ll get out some way,” Jack insisted. “We’re not going to stay in this little old hole forever. It’s too cold here.”
“Can you walk, Harry?” asked Frank.
“In a short time, probably,” was the reply. “While I’m resting, you boys chase around and see if there’s any chance of getting back to the surface of the earth again.”
Frank and Jack spent some time walking about the edge of the pool but could find nothing that looked like an exit.
“If I could turn myself into a barrel of water,” Jack stated with a whimsical smile, “I could run out!”
“Yes, and if you could change yourself into a bird,” Frank laughed, “you could fly out. But you’re not fluid, and you haven’t got wings, so I guess we’ve got to find some other way.”
“Speaking about water,” Jack mused, “how does the water get out of here? It seems to come from springs in the sides of the pool as well as from rills down the mountainside when the snow melts. If it didn’t get out in some way, the Devil’s Punch Bowl would simply be a mountain lake. Perhaps we can get through the passage made by the water.”
Following this suggestion, the boys passed around the pool a number of times always dodging the handle-like spur which shot into the basin by turning back, and finally came to a whirlpool on the east side which showed the drop in the water. The boys examined the whirl of water earnestly.
“Is the hole which makes this whirlpool clear down to the bottom?” asked Jack.
“It isn’t more than four feet from the surface,” answered Frank. “It runs in the wall.”
“You can see it, can you?” asked Jack.
“Plainly,” was the reply. “It’s as large as a church door.”
“It wouldn’t be safe to dive in there and swim through, would it?”
“I should say not!” replied Frank. “The passage is entirely filled by the current and you couldn’t breathe in there more than half a minute. Besides all that, the swiftness of the current shows a steep fall and you’d probably bump your head against a rock before you went a hundred feet. Nothing doing in that line, kid!”
Again and again the boys tramped around the edge of the pool, stopping whenever they came to Harry’s side to speak words of encouragement, but all they discovered in the way of an exit was a crevice which might at one time have furnished an exit for the waters.
The wash from the rocks, brought down, undoubtedly, by water from the melting snows, had apparently lifted the margin of the pool at least a yard above the mouth of the old crevice, which was something like a foot in width. This accumulation of pulverized rock formed a perfect and complete dam across the mouth of the opening.
“Here’s a dry exit,” Frank exclaimed with a grim smile. “If we could just whittle off a few pounds of fat, we might be able to get through there!”
“It dips down pretty fast,” Jack answered. “The chances are that we’d get about such a bump as Harry received before we found the sunshine again. Well, it’s not large enough anyway,” he added, “so we may as well look for some other means of egress.”
While the boy was still standing by the crevice looking about with hopeful eyes, Frank caught sight of a moving object on the rim above.
“Now, what do you suppose that is?” he asked.
In a moment, Jack’s eyes rested on the object, too.
“It’s a boy!” he said. “A boy all right enough, and it’s peaches to prunes that he’s the chap who’s been playing villain ever since we came into the mountains. I wish he had with him the rope that he will eventually be hanged with.”
“Hush!” replied Frank with a grimace. “Keep it dark! Don’t you ever tell him that he’s going to be hanged. If you do, he won’t ever help us out of this blooming old punch bowl.”
The boy stood looking down into the bowl for a moment, listening to the shouts for assistance which the boys now sent up, made a few quick signals, and turned away.
As the reader understands, the assistance Norman sought to give the boys could best be rendered by seeking their friends and informing them of the situation. Jack and Frank were, of course, greatly enraged at the boy’s seemingly heartless desertion of them.
“Now what do you think of that for a cold-blooded reptile?” demanded Jack. “That fellow certainly is the limit!”
“You just wait,” Frank shouted, almost dancing about in his anger, “you just wait till I get my hands on that gink. I’ll change his face so his friends won’t know him. The idea of his going off and leaving us in such a fix as this!”
“It’s rotten!” Jack agreed.
“Rotten?” echoed Frank, “it’s worse than rotten! It’s stinking mean!”
“Which reminds me,” Jack went on, “that if we ever get out of here we’ve got to accomplish the exit by our own exertions.”
“You talk like you had a suggestion to make,” Frank declared.
“I have!” answered Jack. “You see that crevice in the edge of the Punch Bowl, don’t you? Well, that used to carry away the waters of the pool. Some day the water became stuffed with sand and the pool found another way out.”
“I begin to understand!” Frank exclaimed. “I think I know what you mean. You have an idea that we can restore the water to its old channel and creep out through the larger passage, like the Egyptians crossing the Red Sea without getting their feet wet?”
“That’s the idea,” Jack exclaimed, “that’s just the idea! Only the Egyptians didn’t cross the Red Sea without getting their feet wet. It was the Hebrew children who crossed between two vertical walls of water. The Egyptians got theirs right there in the mud!”
“Have it your own way,” Frank laughed. “I’m afraid I don’t remember my Sunday School lessons very well. Have it your own way, only plan some escape from this everlasting pit.”
“Just as I was about to say when you interrupted with your fake story about the Egyptian army,” Jack went on, “we may be able in time to cut through the natural levee that separates the waters of the pool from the old channel. If we can, we can draw the water out of the present exit and use it for our own escape.”
“That’s the idea!” Frank declared.
The two boys now made a closer inspection of the natural levee and the mouth of the crevice. They discovered that by cutting through a couple of feet of sand, the distance being about ten feet, they could, indeed, turn the waters of the pool into its old channel.
Of course this would not provide a depth of channel sufficient to empty the pool, but they believed that, with the natural wash of the current, the surface might be lowered so that water would no longer find its way into the large opening.
Working with such bits of sharp-edged shale as they could find, the boys fell to their task without delay. Harry, observing their industry from a distance, smiled happily at the thought that the boys had at least found a way out which was worth considering.
“If we just had a couple of shovels like those muckers use over on the East river,” Jack said, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket, “we could cut through this obstruction in about five minutes. This is a fierce game!”
“I’m getting so I like these strenuous moments,” Frank declared, putting both hands to his aching back. “The fact of the matter is,” he went on, “that I’d rather be at work draining the Devil’s Punch Bowl than playing the part of a little sissy cigar-store boy in New York.”
“I’m glad you like it!” Jack replied, sourly.
It was almost dark when at last the trench was completed. It was with great satisfaction that the boys saw the water trickle into the new channel and find its way to the crevice. As the current grew stronger, it washed the banks away, and in a very short time a roaring torrent was rushing into the old outlet.
“That’s the idea!” Frank exclaimed. “There’s a head of water here that ought to cut that channel six feet deep,” he went on. “And that will give us a dry tunnel to walk out of.”
“To walk into,” corrected Jack. “We don’t know whether we’ll ever walk out of it or not.”
“Well, you needn’t tell that to Harry!” exclaimed Frank reproachfully. “We’ve got to make him believe that it’s a sure thing we can get him out of this rotten old excavation in the hills.”
“And we’re going to do it, too!” declared Jack. “I don’t know just how we’re going to do it, but we’re going to do it! The channel will soon be dry enough for us to investigate, and somewhere is better than nowhere—by which I mean this hole in the rocks.”
Hearing the rushing water, Harry arose to a sitting position and looked over toward his chums with a smile on his pale face.
“I knew you could do it!” he shouted, still in a faint voice. “I knew you would find a way.”
“You bet we’ll find a way!” Jack answered. “We’ve been in worse holes than this and always got out!”
“Now you’ve said something!” Frank declared.
The boys watched the running water, every moment gaining in force, for a long time, and then, just as the last rays of the sun touched the snowy mantle of the mountain, the water passed below the level of a large opening and they saw it drying out.
“That’s what Grant did at Vicksburg,” Frank laughed. “When he found the water occupying the channel he wanted to use himself, he just turned it to one side.”
“That’s exactly what we’ve done here,” Jack agreed, “but now that we have turned it aside, there’s a question as to whether we can make the same use of the channel.”
“The only way to find out is to go to it,” Frank advised. “Did those ginks take away your searchlight?”
“They did not,” was the reply. “They took away my revolver and looked at the searchlight, but the latter they passed back to me because it seemed to be worthless as a weapon and bulky to carry.”
“I’ve got mine, too,” Frank said, “if it isn’t smashed.”
The boys examined their electrics with great care, and, to their great satisfaction, found that they were still fit for use.
It was now so dark that the lights were actually needed in the pit, still they did not turn them on, fearful that the boy who had shown himself for an instant and then disappeared might return with the half-breeds.
“The first thing to do,” Jack suggested, “is to bring Harry over to the mouth of this dry channel. You see,” he went on, “we’ve got to investigate the place before we attempt to carry him in, and he’ll feel better if we place him where he can hear our voices and see our lights. I guess we can carry him so as not to cause him suffering or injure his bruises.”
“I’ll just bet he can walk over,” Frank declared. “Anyway, I know he won’t like the idea of being carried around like a baby.”
On being consulted upon the point, Harry declared that he could walk just as well as not, and walk he did, although his steps were rather shaky at first. The entrance to the tunnel was quite large, tapering away as it mined the hill. Into this large outer chamber, for such it virtually was, Harry was seated with one of the searchlights for company, and Frank and Jack proceeded on their tour of investigation.
For the first few feet they were able to walk with their backs only slightly bent but then they advanced slowly on their hands and knees. When at last they reached a steep declivity extending, apparently, far into the heart of the mountain, they turned back and brought the wounded boy up to that place.
“Now keep your light covered,” Jack advised, “and if anyone comes down to the pit led by that thief of a boy messenger, they will naturally think we had made a get-away.”
“We’re going down this long incline,” Frank went on, “and when we get to the bottom, if everything is clear, we’re coming back after you.”
For a time the voices and lights of the boys supplied companionship for the wounded lad, then they were heard and seen no more.
Harry waited for a long time for some sign of the return of his friends, but they did not come and he feared the worst.
CHAPTER XV
THE TROUBLES OF GILROY
Following carefully the directions given them by Norman, Ned and Jimmie toiled up the slope until they came to the summit of the ridge which lay along the side of the Sierra Nevadas and then turned to the north. The way was steep and rocky, but in their anxiety and excitement they made good progress.
“The boy may be lying,” Ned replied in answer to Jimmie’s question, “but we can’t take that for granted. We’ve just got to go and see if the boys are in such a predicament as he described.”
“At first,” Jimmie announced, “I had rather a good opinion of Norman. But lately I’ve been thinking over all the tricks he has played on us, and I’m becoming convinced that he is a bad egg.”
“The record does look rather black,” Ned answered. “Every time we have listened to advice or suggestions from him, we have gotten into trouble. He has always told a good story, and we have always had the worst of it. If this proves true in the present case, we will settle with him the next time he comes across our path.”
“You don’t suppose they’ll go to the camp and stir up Gilroy, do you?” asked Jimmie after a long time.
“If they do, he’ll be scared out of his skin!” Ned laughed.
“What made me ask,” Jimmie went on, “is that I saw lights flashing back there, and I thought I heard some one calling.”
“You must be mistaken!” Ned insisted.
“Now just come over here and look for yourself,” Jimmie answered. “Here’s an elevation, something like the one I stood on when I saw the commotion and heard the voice at the camp. Come on over and see what you can make of it.”
Ned stepped to the elevation occupied by his chum and looked out over the slope of the mountain. From where he stood the entrance to the cave was not in sight, it being concealed by the dip of the rock in which the cavern lay. However, a short distance up the slope, he saw a light moving and heard the call of a frightened voice.
“There!” Jimmie exclaimed triumphantly. “What do you make of that?”
“Perhaps the boys have returned,” suggested Ned. “Perhaps they are calling to us now not to wander off in search of them. Suppose we wait here a minute and see?”
“That ain’t any of our boys putting up a roar like that!” Jimmie insisted. “I’ll bet a dollar it’s that fat old confidential clerk. Say, Ned!” he went on, “that fellow has got more screech in him than any full-grown man I ever saw. Do you mind how he cut the air with his agony when the bear had him up the tree?”
“It certainly is Gilroy!” Ned exclaimed impatiently. “Now, what do you suppose sent him up here after us?”
“He probably found himself alone,” suggested Jimmie, “and wandering out, saw our light. I remember of flashing one when we passed around that big boulder.”
“He’s coming on like an insane man!” said Ned angrily. “If there’s an enemy within ten miles of us, he will have no difficulty in locating us after this. I wish I could stop him.”
Ned did not in the least overstate the case when he said that Gilroy was coming on like an insane person. After finding himself alone in the cave, the fat clerk had seized a searchlight and dashed out in quest of the boys. As Jimmie had suggested, he had seen a flash of light up the slope and followed on.
As he advanced now, puffing so that his approach might be heard many rods away, he swung the light frantically in the air and called out at the top of his voice. With an exclamation of impatience, Ned turned on his own light and ran toward him.
“Keep still!” he shouted as soon as the voice of the clerk gave him an opportunity to cut in. “Keep still, I tell you! You’ll have every robber and murderer in the mountain down on us!”
“And now it’s robbers and murderers, is it?” shrieked the clerk. “It was bears and panthers down in the cave. I saw a bear sneaking up to the provision box just as I left. He seemed to want to eat me!”
By this time Jimmie had joined the two, and now stood with a grin on his freckled face, rather enjoying the situation.
“And you chased off and left him chewing up our grub, did you?” he demanded. “What are we going to eat tomorrow?”
“Oh my! oh my!” wailed Gilroy. “I don’t believe there will ever be any tomorrow. Once I get out of this brutal country, I’ll never leave New York again!”
“What are we going to do with him, Ned?” asked Jimmie.
“He’s simply got to go back to the cave,” Ned answered. “We can’t have him with us at a time like this.”
“I can’t go back to the cave!” shouted Gilroy, again brandishing his searchlight in the air. “I won’t go back to the cave alone!” he continued. “If you insist on my leaving you, I’ll start afoot over the mountains for San Francisco.”
“If you should do a fool thing like that,” Jimmie declared, “the bears would have a beautiful feast of fat clerk before morning!”
“I won’t go back to the cave, I just won’t!” insisted Gilroy.
“Well,” Ned said hesitatingly, “if you’ll keep your eyes open and your mouth closed, and hand me that light so you won’t be showing it every second, you may come along with us.”
Gilroy meekly handed over the electric, and the three proceeded on their way, Ned walking close to the fat clerk in order to ensure his silence. Jimmie trailed along with a grin on his face.
Finally Ned paused and pointed to two parallel ridges to the north.
“There,” he said, “unless I am very much mistaken, are the ridges which stand on either side of the Devil’s Punch Bowl.”
“Then we’ll soon know whether that messenger is a liar or not,” Jimmie stated. “He may be all right, but, just the same, I’m looking for some one to butt in on us every minute now!”
They were not molested, however, as they walked along, winding into gulches, climbing to the top of crags, and occasionally making their way over narrow ledges. Gilroy actually shivered as the boys forced him along, sometimes leading him by the arm, at other times pushing him along with many sly winks and chuckles.
There was only the light of the stars, but the ridges were clearly outlined because of the stretches of snow which cloaked them.
At last they came to the verge of the pit and looked down.
“This is the place, sure enough!” Ned decided. “Unless the boy who gave the information is an accomplished liar, we ought to find our chums at the bottom of this wicked old precipice.”
Gilroy stood for a moment trembling on the edge of the cavern and then almost dropped back into Ned’s arms.
“We’ll never get down there, never!” he wailed. “We’ll drop off into space and never see the Great White Way again.”
“Go to it, partner!” grinned Jimmie, not a little disgusted at the lack of physical courage exhibited by the fat clerk. “Get your troubles all off your chest and then cheer up. The worst is yet to come!”
Gilroy sat flat down at the lip of the Devil’s Punch Bowl and almost sobbed out his grief and fright.
“If I ever get out of this rotten old country,” he declared, “I’ll lock myself up in a steam-heated flat, and remain there as long as I live!”
Leaving the fat clerk bewailing his fate, Jimmie made his way to where Ned was standing, looking anxiously down into the depression.
“Do you see anything of the boys?” he asked.
“Not a thing,” Ned replied. “The fact of the matter is,” he went on, “that we couldn’t distinguish a flock of white elephants down there. It’s darker than a pocket!”
“Then what are we going to do?” demanded Jimmie. “The boy didn’t lie about the locality, but it may be that he lied about the lads being here. Anyway,” he went on, “we’ve got to make our way down this wicked old drop and find out whether they’re here or not.”
The narrow ledges down which Jack and Frank had made their way were now out of sight because of the darkness. In fact, to the boys looking into the black hole from above, there seemed no possible way of entering the place where they believed their chums to be.
While they stood there, wondering how the downward journey was to be made in safety even with the rope, the round eye of an electric searchlight became visible at the mouth of the channel from which the water had been led away. Jimmie pointed to it eagerly.
“They are there!” he cried excitedly. “There they are, sure enough!”
“It must be the boys,” Ned replied, “because that finger of light comes from an electric torchlight, and, so far as I know, we are the only ones having them here.”
“Then this Norman kid told the truth for once in his life!” Jimmie admitted. “If he really has directed us to the assistance of our friends I’ll forgive him all the mean things he ever did to us.”
“Well,” Ned said in a moment, “we can now try the rope. We don’t know whether it is long enough to reach the bottom or not, but it will at least bring us nearer to our chums. I don’t half like the idea of going down in the darkness, because there’s no knowing what we may run into, but it’s got to be done all the same.”
“Let me go!” exclaimed Jimmie excitedly. “You and Gilroy can stay here and handle the rope.”
“But you always get lost, little boy!” Ned said with a chuckle.
“I don’t know how I’m ever going to get lost in the bottom of a dip like that,” Jimmie answered. “From what I can see of it, it looks about like the bottom of an old brass kettle.”
After listening to the conversation of the boys for a moment, and reaching the conclusion that he would be required to drop into the dark pit with the others, Gilroy now sprang to his feet and approached Ned with trembling footsteps.
“T can’t get down there!” he almost shouted. “My arms are weak, and my shoulders are lame, and I never could hang onto the rope. I should fall and be crushed to a pulp on the rocks below!”
“Look here, Gilroy!” Ned said angrily. “You must remember that we have troubles of our own. If you don’t want to go with us, perhaps you may be able to find your way back to camp.”
“Never, never, never!” cried the fat confidential clerk. “Didn’t I tell you that I left a bear at the camp?”
“Well,” Ned argued with the fellow, “you and I will lower Jimmie into the hole. Then you can lower me and wait until we get ready to come back. I’ll leave a revolver and searchlight with you, only you mustn’t do any shooting, and you mustn’t show the light under any circumstances. It would be dangerous to do so.”
“You’ll be sure to come back?” pleaded Gilroy. “It would be a wicked thing to do to leave me here in the darkness!”
“Aw, of course we’ll come back!” interrupted Jimmie. “We’ve got to come back, for there’s no other way to get out of the gloomy old den.”
Gilroy seemed to be more cheerful over this arrangement, and assisted quite capably in lowering Jimmie over the lip of the precipice. The two passed out the rope to the boy dangling at the lower end until the cord was almost entirely unwound. Then a call from below announced toe them that the lad had found footing.
“Now then,” Ned explained to the confidential clerk, “when the rope is drawn up, you lie down on your stomach on the other side of the ledge so that you may by no possibility be drawn down. Pay out the rope slowly till I tell you that I have reached bottom and then leave it dangling over the edge. We may have to make a quick jump for it, you know,” he added. “In that case, we want it handy.”
Gilroy’s teeth fairly chattered at the thought of being left alone with such a responsibility, but he said nothing, and Ned soon stood by Jimmie’s side at the bottom of the precipice.
“Have you seen any more lights?” the boy asked.
“Nary a light,” was the reply, “but I thought once that I heard voices coming from the spot in which the illumination was seen.”
“Then we may as well be moving in that direction,” Ned observed, and directly the two boys found themselves gazing at the opening from which the water had been recently drained.
CHAPTER XVI
A FALL IN THE NIGHT
Becoming too anxious for the safety of his friends to remain seated in the position in which he had been left, Harry at last arose to his feet and advanced down the passage toward the incline where they had disappeared. He could see nothing, and presently turned back.
Instead of sitting down again, he moved back, always painfully because of his broken arm, toward the entrance to the old tunnel. He remembered faintly that Jack and Frank had called out to some one at the top of the pit during the afternoon, and his hope was now that whoever had visited the place and witnessed their plight would return.
He reached the entrance and flashed his light about eagerly. No one was in sight and he turned back disheartened. Had he known that the finger of light from the electric had been seen by Ned and Jimmie, he would have returned to his old position with a much lighter heart.
The discouraged boy sat down at the head of the incline to once more watch and listen for the return of his chums. His broken arm was now becoming very painful, and at last he turned on the electric with a view of rearranging the rough sling in which Frank and Jack had placed it.
The boys had been too anxious at the moment of reaching the bottom of the pit to attempt the setting of the limb at that time. They might have done so had they realized that an hour or two must elapse before they could reach a place more suitable for the undertaking.
The instant the boy turned on the light, he heard a shout from the rear, and turning, he saw two flashlights moving toward him. At first the figures behind the lights were not discernible, but as they came nearer he recognized the forms of Ned and Jimmie. The boys approached him almost gaily. Norman had reported Harry lying inertly at the bottom of the Devil’s Punch Bowl, and they had in a measure prepared their minds to find the boy dead or fatally injured.
So, when they saw him leaning against the wall of the old channel, arranging the handkerchief sling which sustained his broken arm, they almost shouted with joy. In a moment they were at his side.
“Hiding, eh?” exclaimed Jimmie, his voice almost choking with emotion. “You thought we couldn’t find you, did you?”