Chapter VIII
THE CHIMNEY
Then on her right she heard a soft rustling, immediately followed by alow call:
"Dorothy, where are you?"
The words brought her joyous relief. "Coming!" she replied in a cautiouswhisper, and with her left hand feeling the almost sheer wall, shehurried toward Bill's voice.
From the darkness he grasped her hand and spoke close to her ear. "I'velocated the chimney, Dorothy."
"Good! I was getting worried. Is it far away?"
"No. Only a few steps."
"What kept you so long, Bill?"
"Had to find the rope."
"What rope?"
They were moving now in the direction from which he had come.
"The one Terry hid in a niche of the rocks. Talk of hunting needles ina--"
"But do we need it?"
"Couldn't risk the climb without it. You've never done any mountainscaling--I have."
"Well, what's the dope?"
They had stopped and Bill took her arm. "Here--let me knot this endaround your waist. First, ditch the slicker, though. You won't be ableto climb in that. I'll take care of it for the present."
He took her coat and she felt him make the rope secure.
"I'm tied to the other end," he told her.
"But what'll you do about my slicker, Bill? If we ever get to the top ofthe ridge, I'll need it."
Bill was busy and didn't answer for a moment. Then--"Your coat and mineare rolled up and lashed to my back," he explained. "I'm going first. Iknow more about this kind of thing than you, and my reach is longer. Mayhave to pull you up the hard places. Don't be afraid to put weight onthe rope when I give the word. But if you slip--yell."
He did not say that a slip on her part would in all probability pull himwith her to crash on the rocky ground below. Bill Bolton did not believein being an alarmist, but she understood just the same.
"Thanks, I'll do my best, Bill."
"Start climbing." His voice came from above her head and she felt a jerkon the rope. "This chimney is a fissure in the cliff, and it slantsslightly upward, thank goodness. Reach above and get handholds on therock projections first. Then pull yourself up, until you find afoothold. When you put your weight on your feet, press your legs againstthe side walls. That will keep you from slipping. Take it easy and restas much as you like. This kind of thing can only be done slowly."
"I'm coming," Dorothy said quietly and she pressed her body into theniche she could not see.
"That's the stuff! I'll rest while you climb. And while you're doing it,I'll keep the rope taut and out of your way."
Dorothy was silent. Groping in the darkness above her head, her fingerscame in contact with a rough projection. It was little more than a smallknob in the rocky side of the chimney, but she managed to get a firmgrip on it with her right hand. Her left found another projectionslightly lower on the other side. She exerted all her strength andslithered upward.
Drawing her knees up she sought rests for her feet on the sides, but therock seemed absolutely smooth. For an instant she was at a loss. Thenremembering Bill's advice, she pressed her legs against the chimneywalls and pushed.
That her body moved upward so easily came as a surprise. It was hard torealize that sheer walls would give such a purchase. Almost at once hershoulders were above the hand holds and she could raise herself bypressing downward until her left knee was planted on the same projectionthat she had gripped with that hand.
Braced firmly against the rock, she looked for higher hand holds, foundthem and soon was able to get her left foot on to the place where herknee had been. With her weight on that foot, it became a simple matterto plant her right in the opposite niche. Straightening her body, shelay forward against the slanting cliff and rested.
"Go ahead, Bill," she called in a low voice as soon as she could speak.
"O.K., kid," came the prompt reply from overhead. "On my way."
Pressed against the wet rockface she could hear the scrape of his bootsand the heavy breathing of muscular strain. Her own thin soled shoeswere sodden from the wet of the woods and pasture. Worse still, theleather was bursting at the sides. And this climb would probablycomplete their ruin. By the time she reached the top, they would bebeyond walking in at all. Never again would she board her plane shod inpumps.
"Come along!"
Bill interrupted her soliloquy, and using the same tactics as before shecontinued to climb.
The first drops of rain she had felt at the bottom of the cliff nowincreased to a steady downpour. Dorothy became soaked to the skin. Waterfrom her leather helmet ran down her forehead, forcing her to keep hereyes closed most of the time.
The cliff, wet and slippery from the preceding storm, was soon slick asa greased slide. Twice she lost her foothold and would have fallen hadnot her sharp cry warned Bill in time. How he managed to stick to hisprecarious perch and bear her weight on the rope until she found a gripon the rock again was more than she could fathom. Each time she slippedher heart almost stopped beating. And the horrible emptiness at the pitof her stomach made her feel deathly ill. But she never wholly lost hernerve. Climbing, then resting, she kept steadily on.
But her strenuous exertions and the almost continuous strain on musclesordinarily little used was wearing down her vitality. Would thisterrible climbing in the dark never end, she thought. Her whole bodyached, her arms and legs felt heavy as lead. Wearily she raised herright hand seeking another hold. When she felt Bill's fingers grasp herown, she started. The shock very nearly caused her to lose balance.
"Now your other paw," said his well-known voice somewhere above in thegloom. "That's the way--up you come."
Then before she really understood what was happening, Dorothy wasdragged higher until she was seated beside Bill on a narrow ledge. Hisright arm held her tightly. He was puffing like a grampus.
She wriggled and wiped the water and perspiration from her eyes with awet, clammy hand.
"Sit tight--old girl," Bill's words came in little jerks. "I know you'reused to altitudes in a plane, but this is different. I guess you'll geta shock when you look below, so--steady."
Dorothy opened her eyes and was glad of his supporting arm. Far below,at the foot of the cliff, pinpoints of light moved hither and yon,puncturing the darkness.
"They know we're somewhere up here," he said softly. "Heard you when youslipped, I dare say. Well, we'll take some finding--and that's no lie,"he chuckled.
"Why--I--I--had no idea we'd come so far," she stammered. "Those lightslook miles away."
"Three or four hundred feet, that's all."
"Funny--it makes me almost dizzy to look down there. You're right--it isdifferent from flying altitude. Bill, do you think they'll find thechimney?"
"Maybe. But they're not likely to try to use it--not tonight, anyway."
"Why not? We did it."
"We were sure of a way up--they aren't. And I don't imagine theybargained for any blind climb up cliffs like these in the rain anddarkness. They wouldn't mind slugging one of us with a sand bag, butwhen it comes to real danger, they'd count themselves out."
"Gee," Dorothy giggled nervously. "I wish I'd been able to!"
"Count yourself out? Well, I don't blame you, kid. Nerve-wracking isn'tthe name for it. But you certainly stood up well. Do you feel able to goon now?"
"Yes, I suppose so." Her reply was rather weak.
"Then we'd better get under way. Terry said the chimney was the worst ofit and we are through with that now. It ends at this ledge." He helpedher to her feet. "Brrr--that wind is cold on wet clothes. If we don'tget moving, we'll cop a dose of pneumonia, sure as shooting!"
"You're a nice, thoughtful fella, Bill," Dorothy smiled grimly in hisdirection. "Trouble is your thoughtfulness is oddly strenuous at times.Is there much farther to go?"
"We're more than half way," he assured her, "and from now on you'll getmore walking than climbing."
Dorothy wanted to laugh but was too tired to do so.
"Lead on, MacDuffer," she cried gamely. "I'm lame, halt and blind, butI'll do my best to follow my chief!"
"Atta girl," he commended. "Give us your paw again, we can travel betterthat way."
"We'll travel, all right--that is, unless our friend Terry is adyed-in-the-wool fabricator."
"Hopefully not, as they say in the Fatherland," he chuckled. He caughther hand in his and they started on a climb up the steep hill that ranback from the ledge.
As Bill had predicted, the going here was not nearly so difficult as ithad been in the chimney. So far as Dorothy could tell, the cliffs, whichwere covered with a grass-grown rubble, sloped in at this point, and ata much easier angle of ascent. Whereas the chimney was almostperpendicular, here, by bending forward and aiding progress withoccasional handholds on bushes and rocky outcroppings, it was possibleto do more than merely creep forward.
A slip, of course, would be dangerous. It would be hard to stop rolling,once started down the incline; and unless a bush or a boulder wereconveniently in the way, a bound over the ledge would be inevitable--andthen oblivion.
She did not like to think about it. Bill guided her up the incline anddid so with uncanny accuracy, considering the darkness, and the factthat he had not travelled this trail before. She came to the conclusionthat the worst was over, when he stopped abruptly.
"Sit down and take it easy," he advised. "This is where I've got to seewhat we're doing."
"Surely you're not going to show a light?" she asked in alarm, and sankdown on the rocky ground.
"Have to," was his quick reply. "Those guys below us know we're up here,so what does it matter?"
"But I thought we were almost at the top."
"Almost, but not quite. Look at that!"
A beam of light shot upward from his torch, and turning her head, shesaw a sight that sent her heart down to the very tips of her ragged,soaking pumps.
They had indeed come to the top; but merely to the top of this steephillside of bushes and rubble. Where this ended, a few feet away, thenaked rock towered almost perpendicular. Forty feet or more from itsbase this wall jutted sharply outward, half that distance again.
She sprang to her feet, an exclamation of dismay on her lips.
This rock canopy above their heads, this absolutely unscalable barrierto their hopes extended in both directions so far as the eye could see.
Bill, who had moved several feet downhill, was flashing his light backand forth along the rugged edge of this roof of rock beneath which shestood.
"How far does it go?" she asked in a small voice.
"According to Terry," he replied, "right to where the cliffs end--bothways--and without a break or a tunnel. But you can't walk alongunderneath very far, because this slant we are on is only forty or fiftyyards wide. Beyond it in either direction there's a sheer drop."
"Then--we're out of luck." Her tone was entirely hopeless.
Bill laughed shortly. "Where Terry got down, we can get up--but it's notgoing to be easy--and that's sure fire!"