CHAPTER XII.
TUBBY'S PERIL.
"That's queer; I don't see a sign of him."
Merritt Crawford, on the return of the Boy Scouts with ropes and help,peered about the ledge for a trace of his leader, but in vain.
"He can't have gone over, too."
It was Blinky who suggested this alarming possibility.
"Don't suggest such a thing," protested Merritt. "Hullo, Tubby!--belowthere--are you all right?"
"Fine and dandy, but snake down a rope as soon as you can, will you, andyou might tie a sandwich on it, if you don't mind."
"You can have your sandwich when we get you up," promised Merritt, asthe others, despite their worry over Rob's disappearance, broke into aloud laugh at Tubby's unconcerned manner.
"Come on, now, and lend a hand with the ropes," ordered Blinky, who hadbrought several lariats up on his pony, and was busily engaged in tyingthem together so as to form a long lifeline. Tubby had not yet beeninformed of Rob's disappearance, as it was feared that it might unnervehim.
A fresh difficulty now presented itself. On the narrow ledge there wasnot sufficient room for the holders of the rope to brace themselves. Tohaul up the stout youth, therefore, it was necessary to return to thesummit of the cliff. This was quickly done, but you may be sure thatgreat caution was exercised in mounting the steps cut in the rock face.The fate of Tubby was fresh in their minds, even without the reminderthat he was still clinging to his uncertain support, so far below them.
Blinky began looking about for a suitable tree, around which to take aturn of the rope, as soon as they reached the summit. One was foundabout fifteen feet back from the lip of the precipice.
"Now, then," ordered the cow-puncher, as he tied a big loop in one endof his long line, "we'll see if this will reach."
He dropped it over the edge of the cliff and dangled it about so that itrattled against the rock. This was in order that the fat boy could hearit and indicate in which direction he wished it swung.
"Is it near you, now, Tubby?" shouted Blinky, peering down into thedarkness and tentatively swinging the rope.
"A little more to the right," came up the stout boy's voice, as steadyas if he was asking for another helping of ice cream.
"That boy's grit clear through, even if he does like to play the giddygoat sometimes," muttered the puncher.
"How's that?" he asked a minute later.
"Wait, I'll reach out and grab it."
"Don't you dare do any such thing!" almost yelled the cow-puncher. "Youmight lose your balance, and----"
He stopped with a gasp. A jerk had come at the other end of the rope.Down there, out of sight, Tubby had hold of it. A succession of jerkstold the holder of the rope on the cliff edge that he was making theloop fast about him.
"All right!" finally hailed Tubby. Then in imitation of an elevatorrunner:
"Go--ing up!"
"Hold on a minute," croaked out Blinky, even his iron nerve a trifleshaken now that the crucial moment was near.
He ran back to the tree and took a deft turn round the trunk. Then heextended the end of the rope to the boys and told them to "tail on."
"What are you going to do?" asked Merritt.
"I'm going to stand at the edge of the cliff and transmit orders frombelow. Mind you, obey them the instant you hear them."
"All right. We will, Blinky," came in chorus.
"Very well. Now hold on and when I tell you to start hauling, pull withall your might. That boy's a heavy load."
"A hundred and forty pounds and still growing," volunteered HarryHarkness.
"Well, that rope held a six-hundred-pound steer, so I guess it'll standhis weight. All I'm afraid of is a knot giving. I made them in the dark,you know."
The cow-puncher, after giving a few more final instructions, ran to thecliff edge.
"All right?" he shouted down.
"All right!" rejoined Tubby.
Blinky straightened up and turned back toward the boys, holding onto therope.
"Haul away, boys," he ordered.
A cheer burst from the throats of the Boy Scouts as they tailed on thelifeline, and walked backward from the tree with it.
"Whoa!" came a shout from below suddenly.
"Whoa!" yelled Blinky, repeating the word.
"What's the matter?" he hailed down, as the hoisting movement stopped.
"Why, I'm bumping my delicate knees," came up in Tubby's voice.
"Can't be helped," yelled down Blinky. Then hailing the hauling line:--
"Pull away, boys."
Steadily they pulled till the fat boy had been raised twenty feet ormore from his tree. Suddenly he hailed Blinky.
"Whoa!" roared the cow-puncher.
Instantly the hoisting ceased.
"Now, what is it, Tubby?"
"I just thought of something."
"What?"
"Say, lots of folks would pay money to see this, wouldn't they?"
"Never mind that now. Are you all right?"
"Yes, except my knees."
"Ha-ul a-way."
The boys on the other end of the rope hauled steadily now, and the fatboy drew nearer and nearer to the ledge.
As he rose higher, hanging suspended like a spider from the end of hisgossamer thread between the sky and the ground, a sudden thought struckBlinky. It would be manifestly impossible to haul Tubby over the edge ofthe ledge which projected like the eaves of a roof. Hardly had thethought flashed across his mind before a shout of alarm came from theboys, simultaneously with a sharp:
Crack!
"The rope!" came a wild yell from the tree.
"It's broken!"
Blinky went white, and his knees shook. At the same instant the ropebegan to snake hissingly over the edge of the precipice. It had parted.Tubby was once more dropping downward like a stone.
"Catch it!" roared Blinky, regardless of his own peril, throwing himselfonto the fast-retreating rawhide. He gripped it, but was carried like afeather before the wind toward the edge of the cliff by the descendingTubby's weight. In another moment--for he obstinately refused to letgo--he would have been over the edge, when the line suddenly tightened.
"Hooray! I've got it."
The shout came in Merritt's voice.
The boy, with great presence of mind, had managed to catch the rope, andsecure it before its end whipped round the trunk of the tree. As theknot which had parted was in the section of the rawhide above the tree,this was possible. Had the rope broken between the tree and the cliffboth Tubby and Blinky would have been dashed to death.
"What parted?" roared Blinky, as soon as he had recovered his senses.
"One of the knots. It slipped. It's all right, now we've fixed it!"hailed Merritt back.
"Merritt, you're all right," shouted the cow-puncher, "if it hadn't beenfor you, I'd have been down among the cattle now. I'd have traveled bylightening express, too."
As it was dark, the boys had not been able to see what the cow-puncherhad done, so it was not till long afterward that they found out themeaning of his remark and learned of his courageous action.
The cow-puncher feared that the sudden drop and the danger of the ropebreaking again under the renewed strain might have frightened Tubby intoa swoon. To his intense joy, however, in reply to his hail there came upa cheerful:
"Say, what are you fellows doing? Having a game up there? You almostjolted the daylights out of me."
"All right, we'll be more careful in future, Tubby," breathed thepuncher, not daring to tell the boy what had actually happened.
"Are you near the ledge, Tubby?" hailed the puncher suddenly, after aninterval 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 toget 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 amove till he hailed them, he slipped down the stone steps and reachedthe ledge. Arrived there, he peered over into the black void under hisfeet. Swinging a short distance below, he could distinguish a blackerobject than the surrounding night. He could also make out a sound ofhumming. It was Tubby crooning to himself as he swung on the end of thefrail rope:
"See-saw! see-saw! On a s-um-mers day!"
"Well, I'll be extra special, double-jiggered!" breathed the puncher, ashe 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, Iwant you to hang to the edge of this ledge by your finger tips for justtwo 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 tohis mouth, he shouted upward:
"Haul away! Slow, now!"
He placed his fingers on the taut rope and felt it slip upward throughthem.
"Good old ropes," he murmured; "stretched like a fiddle string and soundas 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 stoutboy's hands, have hauled him up beside him--he could have, that is ifTubby had been able to assist him by digging his feet into the rockface. But this he could not do, as he was dangling from the lip of theledge, fully three feet out from the face of the precipice, and withfour hundred feet of empty space 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 theother's suspended weight. Instead, therefore--necessity being the motherof invention--he had thought up a daring plan. What this was we shallsoon see.
"Can you grip the edge with your fingers, Tubby?" whispered thecow-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 therope, 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 betweenhim and eternity.
Blinky's breath came sharp and hard as he rapidly adjusted the ropearound himself just under the shoulders. Then leaning forward, he seizedthe 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 theyseemed to crack. The sweat rolled down his face, and his features becamecontorted. Tubby was a heavier load than he had bargained for. But pluckand grit won out, and after a few seconds of this Titanic struggle thestout boy stood safe on the ledge beside his rescuer.
"Got him!" muttered Blinky triumphantly. But even as he spoke he almostlost the rescued boy. All at once Tubby became as limp as a half-emptiedsack of grain, and seemed about to slide backward out of thecow-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 boysank heavily in a dead swoon on the ledge beside his rescuer.