CHAPTER XV. OUT OF THE FRYING PAN.
For only an instant did Rob remain motionless. Then, as if by instinct,he suddenly crouched. It was well he did so. A bullet sang above his headas he clung, swinging on his frail support, and flattened itself with anangry "ping!" against the rock wall above him.
The report brought the rest of the sleeping camp to its feet. In aninstant voices rang out and hastily lighted lanterns flashed. Rob, takingadvantage of even such a brief diversion, sprang upward. But with a roarof fury, Dale sprang to the foot of the ladder. Desperation gave Robnimble feet. He literally leaped upward.
In his mind there was a dreadful fear. The ladder was hardly strongenough to bear two. By placing his weight on the lower part of it, it wasDale's intention to bring him down to the ground. That in such an eventhe could escape with his life, seemed highly improbable.
But fast as he went, he felt the ladder quiver as Dale's hold was laidupon it from below. At this critical instant a sudden diversion occurred.From right above Rob's head, or so it seemed, a voice roared out throughthe night.
"Tak' yo' dirty paws off'n dat ladder, white man, or, by de powers, it'sde las' time you use 'em!"
It was Jumbo's voice. But Dale answered with a roar of defiance. He shookthe ladder violently. Rob felt himself dashed with sickening forceagainst the cliff-face. But all at once there was a warning shout.Something roared past his ears, just missing him.
"Haids below!" sung out Jumbo as he watched the huge rock he haddislodged go crashing downward.
It missed Dale by the fraction of an inch. But his narrow escape unnervedthe fellow for an instant. In that molecule of time Rob gained the summitof the ladder, and Jumbo's strong arms drew him up to safety beside him.
"Well done, Jumbo," he exclaimed.
"Oh, dat wasn' nuffin'," modestly declared Jumbo, "if dat no-accounttrash hadn't uv leggo I'd have flattened him out flatter'n dan a hoecake. Yas, sah."
"I guess you would, Jumbo. But there's no time to lose. Come, we must begetting on."
"One ting we do firs' off wid alacrimoniousness, Marse Blake," saidJumbo.
"What's that?"
"Jes' len' me dat lilly knife you take frum dat pestiferous pussonagebelow an' I shows yoh right quick."
Rob had thrust the knife into his scout belt. He now withdrew it andhanded it to the negro. With two swift slashes, Jumbo severed the topstrands of the ladder. A crash and outcry from below followed. Rob,peeping over, saw that Dale, who had just begun to mount after them, wasthe victim. He was rolling over and over, entangled in the strands of theladder, while Stonington Hunt stood over him in a perfect frenzy of rage.
"Now den, Marse Blake, ah reckin' we done cook de goose of demcriminoligous folks," snorted Jumbo as he gazed. "He! he! he! dey is surehaving a mos' fustilaginal time down dere."
"I guess they'll have plenty to think over for a time," said Rob, rathergrimly; "come, let's set out. Have you any idea in which direction thecamp lies?"
"No, sah. But I raickon if we des foiler de lake we kain't go fur wrong."
"We must go toward the south, then. See, there's the Scout's star, thenorth one. The outer stars in the bucket of the dipper point to it."
"Wish ah had a dippah full ob watah. I'm po'ful thirsty," grunted Jumbo.
"We'll run across a stream before very long, no doubt," said Rob.
With these words the lad struck off through the forest of juniper andhemlocks. The moon had not yet risen, and it was dark and mysteriousunder the heavy boughs. Jumbo held back a minute.
"Come on. What's the matter, Jumbo?" exclaimed Rob.
"It look powerful spooky in dar, Marse Blake."
"Well, I guess the spooks, if there are any, will do us less harm thanthat gang behind us," commented Rob.
Jumbo, without more words, followed him. But he rolled his eyes from sideto side in evident alarm at every step. On and on they plunged, makingtheir way swiftly enough over the forest floor. From time to time theystopped to listen. But there was no sound of pursuit. In fact, Rob didnot expect any. With the ladder destroyed, there was not much chance ofthe Hunt crowd clambering over the cliff tops.
At such moments as they paused, Rob felt, to the full, the deepimpressiveness of the forest at night. Above them the sombre spires ofthe hemlocks showed steeple-like against the dark sky. The night windsent deep pulsations through them, like the rumbling of the lower notesof a church organ. All about lay the deeper shadows of the recesses ofthe woods. They were shrouded in a rampart of impenetrable darkness.
"I hope we're keeping on the right track," thought Rob, as it grewincreasingly difficult, and finally impossible, to see the north starthrough the thick mass of foliage above them.
The boy knew the danger of wandering in circles in the untracked waste offorest unless they kept constantly in one direction. Without the stars toguide him, it grew increasingly difficult to be sure they were doingthis.
"Golly! Ah suttinly hopes we gits out of dis foliaginous place befo'long," breathed Jumbo stentorously, stumbling along behind Rob over therough and stony ground that composed the floor of the Adirondack forest.
All at once, as Rob strode along, he stopped short. Some peculiarinstinct had caused him to halt. Just why he knew not. But he was broughtup dead in his tracks.
"Wha's de mattah, Marse Blake?" quavered Jumbo, "yo' all hain't seein'any hants or conjo's, be yoh?"
Rob replied with another question.
"Got a match, Jumbo?" he asked.
"Yas sah, Marse Blake, I done got plenty ob dem lilly lucilfers."
He dived in his pocket and produced a handful of matches, which he handedto Rob. The boy struck one, and, as the yellow flame glared up, heuttered a little cry and stepped back with a perceptible shrinkingmovement.
No wonder he did so. At the young Scout's feet the flare of the match hadrevealed a yawning abyss. One more step and he would have been over it.Gazing into the ravine he could hear the subdued roar of a streamsomewhere far, far below. A cold blast seemed to strike upward againsthis face.
"Gracious, what a narrow escape!" he exclaimed. Then, stirring a smallstone with his foot he dislodged it and sent it bounding over the edge.Bump! bump! tinkle! tinkle! plop! plop!--and then--silence.
"Golly, goodness, dat hole mus' be as deep as de bad place itself!"exclaimed Jumbo, shrinking back in affright, "dat hole mus' go cleanfrough de middle of de world an' come out de odder side in China."
"It certainly does seem as if it might," agreed Rob; "at any rate, ifwe'd gone over it we'd have had no time to investigate--ugh!"
Rob gave a shudder he could not subdue as he thought of their narrowescape.
The only thing to be done under the circumstances, was to turn aside andkeep on slowly, awaiting the daylight to see where they were, and thenature of their surroundings. They had progressed in this fashion perhapshalf a mile or so, when Jumbo gave a sudden cry:
"Look, Marse Blake! Wha' dat froo de trees dere? Look uncommon lak alight."
"It is a light. Although I don't know what any habitation can be doing inthis part of the world," answered Rob.
"Maybe even ef it's only er camp we kin git suffin' ter eat dar,"suggested Jumbo hopefully, "ah'm jes' nacherally full ob nuttin' butemptiness."
"You'd never make a Scout, Jumbo."
"Don' belibe I wants ter be no Skrout nohow," retorted Jumbo, "dar's toomuch peregrinaciusness about it ter suit me."
Rob did not reply. But a moment later he cautioned Jumbo to progress ascautiously as possible. The boy could see now that the light proceededfrom the open doorway of a hut. Within the rude structure he could makeout a masculine figure in rough hunting garb bending over a stove at oneend of the primitive place.
All of a sudden Rob's foot encountered something. He tripped and fell,sprawling on his face. At the same instant the sharp report of a gun rangout close at hand.
The wire over which the boy had tripped, and which was stretched acro
ssthe pathway, had discharged the alarm signal. As the echoes went roaringand flapping through the forest, the man who had been bending over thestove, straightened as if a steel spring had suddenly sprung erect.
He was a small, dwarfish-looking fellow, with a clay-colored skin, beady,black eyes, shifty as a wild beast's. The animal-like impression of hisface was heightened by a shaggy beard of black that fell in unkemptfashion almost to his waist. He wore blue jean trousers, moccasins and athick blue flannel shirt.
With a swift, panther-like movement, he snatched up a rifle that stood inone corner of the hut. His next move was to extinguish the light with asharp puff. Then, with every sense wire-strung, he stood listening.