“

I’ll tell you, fellows,” began Rob, a day or so after they had brought home the young eagles—“I’ll tell you what we ought to do to-day after we have got the breakfast dishes done. Let’s make a trip over to the big rocks beyond, where we went with Jimmy that time. If the eggs are not all hatched, and if these birds keep on laying, as maybe they do, we might still get some fresh eggs.”

“That would be fine,” said John, “because I for one am getting just a little tired of salmon all the while. I’d give anything for a good piece of bread and butter.”

“Or pie,” said Jesse, his mouth almost watering.

“Now, there you go,” said Rob, “talking about things we can’t have. Why, I wouldn’t give a cent for a piece of pie myself—that is, not unless it was a piece of real cherry pie, with fresh cherries, the kind we used to get—” All three boys looked at one another and broke out laughing.

“Anyhow,” said John, “maybe we can make a sort of pie after the salmon-berries get ripe. At least we could if we had a little flour and lard and baking-powder and things—”

“And if we knew how,” added Jesse. “It seems to me the best thing we can do, the way things are, is to go egg-hunting as Rob suggests.”

There was perhaps more wisdom in Rob’s plan than any one of the boys knew at first. He was old and wise enough to know that the best way to keep them all from homesickness was to be busy all the time. This discovery is not new among military men, or those who lead exploring parties, although it was one which Rob thought out for himself; so now he went on:

“We’ll just take the dory,” he said, “and slip down the coast beyond the mouth of the creek, and so on beyond the rocks where Jimmy and we all went when we got the sea-parrot hides. There are rocks over there, tall needles with straight sides, that have got thousands of birds of all sorts on them.”

“What will we do with our eagles?” asked Jesse, hesitating.

“We can leave them plenty of food, and put a few boards together so that they can get under in case the crows or ravens should attack them. They will get along all right, I am sure.”

“I’d like to go with Skookie in the bidarka,” said John, but Rob shook his head.

“No, you don’t,” he said, “you go in the dory with the rest of us. That boy is all right, but he might not be strong enough to handle a bidarka in a high sea; and up here we never can tell when the wind is going to come up.”

“Suppose it did upset,” said John, sturdily. “I have been out of it, here in the lagoon.”

“Yes, but that is different from getting upset out there in the middle of the bay. You know perfectly well that you could not get back in again; and swimming out there is something different from the lagoon, where the bank is right at hand all the time. I don’t even like to go very far out in the dory; but see, it is fair and calm just now. So hurry up and let’s get away. Get all the rope you can, too, fellows, because we may have to go down the face of the rock to get at the nests.”

“I have seen pictures of that,” said Jesse—“how the egg-gatherers go down in a rope handled by other men up above them on the rocks. Do you suppose that three of us could pull the other fellow up and down? Skookie here looks pretty strong.”

“I don’t know,” said Rob, “but we’ll take the rope along and see how it works out.”

Not long after they were safely off in the big dory, which, under two pairs of oars and with the wind favorable, astern, made very good time down the long spit at the mouth of the creek. Beyond that point they were obliged to take to the open bay, quite out of touch of land, for a distance of a mile and a half. This brought them to the foot of a small, rocky island, out of which arose two or three sharp, column-like groups of rocks which, as Rob had said, were literally covered with nesting birds.

“We’ll have to get around behind,” said Rob; “nobody could climb up on this side, that’s sure.”

Scrambling over the loose rocks, left wet and slippery by the tide, they passed to the rear of these pillars, first having made fast the dory so that it could not be carried away. In the pools of sea-water they found many strange shells and several specimens of the squid, or cuttle-fish, upon which Skookie fell gleefully. He and his people are fond of this creature as an article of food; but its loathsome look turned the others against it, so that with reluctance he was forced to throw them away again.

At the back of the largest of these rock pinnacles they stood in hesitation for a moment, for the ascent seemed hard enough. At last, however, Rob found a sort of cleft or large crack, which seemed to lead up toward the top, and whose rough sides seemed to give foothold sufficient for a bold climber. “Here we go, fellows!” he said, and so started on up, hand over hand, the best he could. To their satisfaction, however, they found the going not so hard as it had looked from below. At the top, the sides of the cleft seemed to pinch together, so that in some places they were obliged to climb as a chimney-sweep does, their legs pressed across the open space; but as they were all out-of-door boys and well used to Alaska mountain work, they went ahead fearlessly and soon found themselves at the summit of the tower-like rock, whence they had a splendid view of the bay and the surrounding country. Startled by their presence, the sea-birds took wing in hundreds and thousands, soaring around them, flapping almost in their faces, and uttering wild, discordant cries. The boys fought these off as they began to explore the top of the rock.

“Mostly little gulls here,” said John, “and I never heard they were good to eat. I don’t like the look of these eggs, either. Looks as if we were too late for a real good egg season.”

“Well,” said Rob, “anyhow, we have had a good climb and a good look over the country. Now, what I propose to do is to see what there is lower down on the face of the cliff. I’m sure there’s a lot of sea-parrots there, because I can see them flying in and out down below.”

“Let me go down, Rob,” said John. “I’m lighter than you are.”

“No,” said Jesse, “I think I ought to go down, because I am even lighter than you, John, and Rob is stronger than either of us.”

“I’ll tell you how we’ll fix that,” said Rob. “We’ll tie the end of the rope around this big rock here; and I’ll pass the other end through my belt and pay it out as I climb down. I won’t need to put all my weight on the rope, but will just use it to steady me as I climb. If I have any trouble getting up, why, then you three fellows can see what you can do toward pulling. Don’t you let it slip, now. And if I shake the rope three times, then you begin to pull. You can signal me the same way if I get where you can’t see me, or where you can’t hear me call for the noise the birds are making.”

It was really a dangerous thing which Rob proposed to do, but boys do not always stop to figure about danger when there is something interesting ahead. Passing the rope through his belt as he had said, he kept hold of the free end with one hand, and so, picking his way from one projecting point to another, he began slowly to pass down the seaward face of the rock, which proved to be not so steep as it had seemed from below, although ridged here and there with sharp walls or cut banks, which crossed from almost one face of the pinnacle to the other.

Rob’s daring was rewarded by the finding of countless numbers of nests of the sea-parrots, which were bored back straight into the face of the cleft. “Here they are, boys!” he called back, his voice being even by this time barely distinguishable amid the clamor of the gulls and other wild birds which continuously circled about.

Rob thrust his arm into one of these holes in the cleft, and was lucky enough to catch a female parrot by the neck and to pull her out without any injury to himself. For a time he examined the bird, laughing at its awkward movements when he flung it on the rocks at last, uninjured. Then he edged on along the rock face, his foot on a sort of narrow shelf and his body guided by the supporting rope. “I can get a lot of them here!” he called up to his friends.

A moment later he pushed his arm again into an aperture among these nests. At once he uttered a sudden, sharp cry and pulled out his arm. His finger had been bitten almost to the bone by the hornlike beak of one of the birds. The pain of this alone would have been bad enough, but now it caused a still more serious accident.

As Rob shook his bleeding finger at his side, and half raised his left arm to fend off the rush of two or three angry wild birds, he suddenly slipped with one foot at the edge of the narrow shelf on which he stood, and before he could catch his balance or do more than tightly grasp the free end of the rope which passed under his belt, over and down he went.

For one swift instant he saw the long, white, curling breakers on the beach below him, for he fell face downward, his body or feet scarcely touching the rocky wall. He never knew quite how it happened, but in some way the rope jammed at his belt, and before he had fallen more than fifteen or twenty feet he found himself fast, but swinging like a plummet at the end of the line, entirely out of touch, with either hands or feet, with the face of the rocky wall. Below him he could faintly hear the murmur of the sea on the rocks a hundred and fifty feet below. Above him he could see nothing but the edge of the shelf over which he had fallen. As soon as he could control himself, he called aloud again and again, but he got no answer. If his friends above heard him, their answer was drowned by the clamor of the wild birds. Here, then, was the most serious situation in which he had ever found himself in all his life.

Up above, on the summit of the rock, the boys had seen the sudden jerk on the rope and noticed that now it was motionless, whereas before it had trembled and shifted as Rob moved along the shelf. Skookie was the first to divine what had happened. He pointed to the cord, now tense and stiff, and leaned out over the rim, peering down at the shelf where Rob had stood.

“Him gone!” said he, turning back a sober face. “Pretty soon him die now, I guess.”

Jesse and John looked at each other with white faces. They sprang to the rope, but hesitated, fearing lest touching it might prove dangerous.

“Wait,” said Jesse. “Let’s look around first and get our wits together. One thing is certain, he is down there at the end of this. If the rope was not fast to him it would be loose and we could pull it up. That means that he is alive yet, anyhow, I am sure.” He leaned far out over the rim of the summit, and between his hollowed hands called down: “Don’t be afraid, Rob! We’ll pull you up pretty soon!”

Dangling far down at the end of the rope, Rob at first grew faint and dizzy. He dared not look below him, but had presence of mind enough to keep his eyes fixed on the nearest part of the cap of the rocky wall, so that he was less dizzy, although he whirled round and about at the extremity of the rope, which it seemed to him would almost cut him in two. None the less he made the end all the more secure about his waist; then once in a while he would ease the strain by lifting a little with a hand above his head. He shifted the rope until the noose came closer under his arms, realizing that he must not exhaust his strength in trying to raise his weight hand over hand. Thus, after the first few minutes of fright and after he had dared to open his eyes and take stock of the dangerous plight in which he found himself, he began calmly to reason, as very often one will who finds himself in imminent peril, the situation being too serious to allow him time for fright.

Skookie sat down apathetically on the rocks and made no move. “Get up there, Skookie!” said Jesse. “Why do you act like a dummy? Nobody is dead yet. We’re going to haul him up; don’t you see? Now get hold of the rope—all of us; now, all together!”

They lifted as hard as they could, but, do their best, they could gain almost nothing on the rope. Little as that was, Rob felt it down below and knew that they were trying to save him.

“Now what shall we do?” John asked Jesse, in distress. “If we can’t pull him up—and maybe we’d cut the rope on the rocks trying to do that—why, then, how is he going to get out of that?”

Skookie, seeing that they had but little success in lifting the heavy weight at the other end of the rope, now, without any orders, tried a plan of his own. Passing along the edge of the rim of rock off to the right, he found a place where he could descend for at least a short distance. He disappeared below, but presently came back, his face lighted up with the first sign of hope it had shown.

“Dis way!” he said; “dis way!” and made motions that they should pull on the rope and shift it to the right as far as they were able. The young native’s sharp eyes had seen that if Rob could get to a place a little farther at one side than where he hung, he could get his feet against the rock, and so, perhaps, help himself more than otherwise would be possible.

A little consultation followed at the top of the rock, then inch by inch the boys edged the rope along. Rob found himself, without any effort of his own, gradually approaching the face of the rock. At last he could kick it; and so he helped himself, pendulum fashion, until finally he got a hand on a rocky point, and so could rest his weight on the rough surface. To him even this vantage-ground seemed as if it were actual safety, so much better was it than swinging helpless like a fly on a cord. When his weight was taken from the rope those above at first thought that he had fallen to the foot of the cliff; but now he gave the signal of three short jerks, and they saw that he must have reached some place where he could support his weight. At this they broke out into a shout of joy.

“Now, what will we do?” asked Jesse, thoughtfully. “We won’t pull up until he signals us again, I guess. Maybe he will try to come up himself, steadying himself by the rope, the way he went down. I wish we could see where he is.”

This chance counsel of Jesse’s was precisely the best thing that could have happened, for Rob had now determined to help himself by climbing up the rope hand over hand in the attempt to reach the ledge from which he had fallen. How he was going to get over the edge he could not clearly see, but he was now convinced that the friction on the rope was such that his friends could not haul him up, and that if he were saved he must save himself by getting above that projecting edge.

Slowly he began to feel his way up the rock, supporting his weight as much as possible without the use of the rope, until, half leaning against the rock and half pulling on the rope, which was now shifted to a point directly above his head, he reached a place where he could no longer keep in touch with the rocky face. Then bravely, as should any one who finds himself in such straits, he swung out and rapidly began to climb up the rope, hand over hand, sailor fashion.

He reached the edge of the rock, and perhaps might have been able in some way to get above it without injury, although, on the other hand, he might never have been able to get across unaided. What happened was that the boys up above, seeing the rope again agitated and not certain what their best course now might be, laid hold of it and began to pull as hard as they could. The result was that Rob’s left hand, just as he reached the rim of rock, was caught under the rope. He flung his other hand around the corner, caught the rope, and scrambled up on one knee just as the strong heave from above tore the rope almost through his fingers, cutting them open as they lay against the rocks.

The pain was intense, but he hardly minded that, for he saw now that he was again in safety. From there on up the face of the rock he scrambled on hands and knees, slipping and falling, but still going up, assisted by the steady pull, hand over hand, of his friends, who now saw what had happened, and who encouraged him with their shouts. So, none of them knew just how, presently he found himself at the summit once more, the others about him, all talking at once.

Rob held up his mangled hand, from which the blood was now flowing freely. The wounds to his fingers were really serious, but he bore the pain as bravely as he could, although his face was white.

“Anyhow, I got back,” said he, shaking the blood from his hand. “I think the best thing we can do now is to start on home. I ought to do something for this hand as soon as possible.”

They were all pale and very much frightened. All at once Rob began to tremble, his hands and legs shaking uncontrollably. The nervous strain having now relaxed, the full shock of terror and pain set in, as often is seen in the cases of grown men similarly situated. It was some time before he recovered sufficiently to be able to risk the dangerous climb down the cliff on the inner side of the pinnacle. At last, however, they found themselves again safely in the dory, where, of course, his companions would not allow him to think of rowing. Progress against the wind and sea they found now much slower, and it was almost an hour before they reached the mouth of the creek, where Rob could land on the beach and so walk up toward the hut. By that time his hand was badly swollen and giving him intense pain.

The boys did not attempt to take the dory around to the landing opposite to the hut, but left it moored at the creek mouth. They did not talk a great deal as they returned to the barabbara at the close of their disastrous day. The pain which Rob suffered gave them all concern. It was Skookie once more who proved himself resourceful. Without asking leave of any one, he crossed the lagoon on the stepping-stones and disappeared in the thicket beyond. A few minutes later he appeared with his hands full of coarse green leaves with slender, lance-shaped tips, the name of which none of the boys ever knew.

“Karosha,” he said—“all right, all right,” and so proceeded to bind these on Rob’s wounded fingers. Having wrapped them in a number of the leaves, he led Rob to the edge of the creek, and here made up a big ball of mud, which he plastered over the entire hand.

“Now I am a pretty sight,” said Rob. “I was going to wash my hands, but maybe this will do. I have heard that natives sometimes know a thing or two about taking care of such things.”

The native lad’s knowledge of simples proved more efficient than any of them had dreamed. In the course of half an hour Rob’s face brightened. “Why,” said he, “I don’t believe it hurts so badly now. Skookie, you are a great little doctor.” And, indeed, that night he slept as soundly as any, although they all spent less time than usual that evening in talk about the doings of the day.