  When the collision came, the boy uttered a shout that was a curious commingling of pain and exultation. His arm and hand felt as though they had been given a severe galvanic shock, but he was conscious of the pleasing fact that he must have struck the eagle a hard blow with the rock, which had been knocked from his grasp and gone over the edge of the shelf, rattling down along the face of the precipice. “Where did he go to?” stammered the boy, beginning to recover from the concussion, and casting about for another weapon in the shape of a fragment of granite. “Oh! there he is perched on that spur down below. And see how his wing hangs, will you? Perhaps it’s broken, for it struck my stone like a pile driver. Don’t I hope that’s a fact, though! I warned him he’d get the worst of the bargain if he kept on fooling with me. Serves the old pirate right. But now I’m worse off than ever, because with this lame shoulder I wouldn’t dare take the risk of hanging to a rope and flattening out against the face of the precipice.” He kept rubbing his lame shoulder while talking. The immediate future did not look very promising. How much time had elapsed while he had been there in his predicament, Gus could not say, but no doubt it seemed many times longer in his mind than was actually the case. Not being a scout, he had never learned how to tell time from the position of the sun, moon or stars, so that he could only give a rough guess as to how much of the summer afternoon had slipped away. And now, new sources of dread began to assail him. The sun had crept around so that its scorching rays fell full upon the face of the cliff above, and this aroused Gus to the fact that he was beginning to get exceedingly thirsty. Once he allowed himself to think of this, he imagined that his tongue was trying to cling to the roof of his mouth for lack of a drink. Yes, and he even remembered reading a short time before of the terrible sufferings a boat load of shipwrecked people endured while adrift on the heaving ocean. Supposing that no one appeared on the road below during the whole afternoon, how was he going to pass the coming night? He would not dare go to sleep for fear that he might roll from his insecure lodgment, unless he took the precaution to fasten himself with the friendly rope, which he was beginning to look upon as his most valued possession. More time elapsed, during which Gus was recovering in some degree from the fatigue following his desperate battle with the eagle. He could still see the big bird perched on that lower crag, and he noticed, not without more or less savage satisfaction, that it seemed to be preening its feathers, paying particular attention to the drooping wing which had come in contact with the rock. “For two cents, I’d start bombarding you, and see if you could fly,” he told the bird, as he shook his fist in that quarter, “but I suppose that would be a silly move, because if it turned out that the wing wasn’t broken after all, you might take a notion to start at me again. So I guess I’ll call it off, and try to forget all I owe you, old chap. Hello! what’s that I hear? Sounds as if a machine of some kind might be coming away off yonder!” He strained his ear to better catch the sounds. As the fickle breeze came and went, he managed to make out that the queer rattle kept getting distincter each moment. This would indicate that whatever was giving vent to the sounds must be approaching, and not going the other way. The boy prisoner on the rocky ledge began to thrill with excitement. “But really, I never heard a car act like that,” he muttered as he heard the peculiar throbbing again welling up from below. “It might be the exhaust of a motorboat or of a motorcycle, only—oh! there were three of them at the inn. Yes, it must be those scouts heading up this way!” At first, the very thought of possibly owing his rescue to Hugh Hardin and his two chums of the saddle, gave Gus a feeling of chagrin. If he had his choice, very naturally he would have much preferred that some stranger pull him up from the predicament in which a cruel fortune had thrust him. But then, after all he had gone through, the boy’s pride had been sadly battered, and he did not feel like looking a gift horse in the mouth. So long as he escaped from this miserable trap, he felt that he would be foolish to draw distinctions. Besides, somehow he did not seem to feel quite the same way toward the scouts as before. When worn by those who were in a position to do him a great favor, those jeered-at khaki uniforms might look even friendly. And so, Gus Merrivale kept tabs on the dusty road far below, eagerly waiting to catch the first glimpse of the coming party. As he looked, he suddenly saw a swiftly moving object appear around a bend in the road, the sun’s rays glinting from polished steel and nickeled parts. It was one of the trio of scouts on his motorcycle, and heading directly toward the base of the cliff! Filled with excitement, Gus made a megaphone out of both hands by cupping them, and shouted at the top of his lusty voice. “Hello! hello! Help! help!” He was pleased to see that the rider of the flashing wheel must have heard his loud call by the way he turned his head upward. Gus immediately started waving his handkerchief, somewhat after the fashion he remembered seeing a scout do with his signal flag, and which, at the time, he had only thought was a silly procedure. “He sees me! He lifted his hand and waved it!” the prisoner of the ledge exclaimed, thrilled with delight. “It’s going to be all right after all! If only I can make them understand that they’ve got to get above so as to pull me up.” By now he had discovered a second and then a third speeding motor flash around the curve. Undoubtedly, the pacemaker must have made some prearranged signal, for the others immediately cut down their speed, and a minute later jumped from their saddles at the spot where the first rider had dismounted. He was pointing upward toward the ledge, and the eager Gus was able to catch a few words that came trailing through space. “What happened to you?” Hugh Hardin was shouting, also making use of his hands in order to help his voice along. “On a ledge—can’t get up or down—follow the road to log rail, and get me out of this—Gusty Merrivale—been stopped on the road and robbed!” was what the one above shouted down to them. No doubt his words created something of a sensation, for he could see the three scouts putting their heads close together as though conferring. Then once more Hugh, who was looked upon as the leader by his comrades, called out. “All right—hold the fort a little while longer—we’re coming up as fast as we can get there—take things easy—we’ll sure yank you up off that ledge—so-long!” Without wasting another minute, the speaker was seen to straddle his machine and start off, the others following his example shortly afterward. With a warmer feeling in his heart toward the scouts than he had ever known before, Gus watched them shooting toward the foot of the rise. Now and then he would lose sight of this rider or that one, and for several minutes he could only trace their progress by the dust that arose. Then the last fellow had vanished from view. He knew from the sounds that came occasionally to his ears that they were climbing the ascent which had tried his little runabout’s powers to the utmost. It seemed a terribly long wait to the impatient boy. He tried to pass the time away by picturing to himself how he would immediately start off after those bold hoboes who had held him up on the road, evidently knowing that he was due with the money to settle with the quarry workers on the semimonthly pay day. “Hello, down there, Gusty! We’re here on deck, and ready to give you a helping hand!” called out a voice from directly above. The boy, aroused from his train of thought, looking directly up, saw a friendly face, which he immediately recognized as belonging to Hugh Hardin, the leader of the Wolf Patrol. Immediately another countenance appeared alongside, this time being the rosy one of Billy Worth, nor was the third scout long in showing up near by. “How can you get me up there?” asked Gus anxiously. Now that another crisis in his affairs had arrived, he began to feel dubious again. “I’m trying to figure it out,” the other replied. “If it comes to the worst, we can use a sapling that I noticed lying alongside the road below here, and have you climb up that.” “Oh! that same sapling has already played a part in my troubles!” exclaimed the boy below, with something like a smile, “and perhaps it would be only evening it up if you used it to get me out of here. But I’ve got a mighty lame shoulder, you see. I had a fight with that eagle over there on that stone cap, and I reckon I nearly broke his wing, but first he gave me some ugly clips. Why, I had to tie myself to the rock with this piece of rope so I wouldn’t be knocked off!” “Did you say a rope?” quickly asked the scout leader. “Yes, this short piece that the men lowered me down here with, and then threw after me, knowing that I couldn’t use it to get any further down the precipice,” and the boy on the shelf held it up as he spoke. “Oh! that makes it as easy as falling off a log,” came from Hugh cheerfully. “All you have to do is to fix the loop under your arms, and when I lower a cord, tie it to the other end of your rope. Then we’ll get hold of it, and up you come!” “That sounds good to me!” declared Gus, already warming toward the boy who it seemed was fated to become his rescuer. A minute later and the dangling cord came within his reach, and as he had already made the noose secure around his body, Gus hastened to tie this to the end of his rope. He saw it mount speedily upward, and presently a shout from Billy announced that the rope had come into their hands. “All ready there?” demanded the patrol leader. “Dead sure the loop will hold?” “It did when they let me down,” replied Gus with the utmost confidence. “Please hurry up and begin. And be sure not to slip, because it’s pretty far down to the bottom. A fellow wouldn’t know what hit him if he took that drop.” “Don’t worry about us!” said Billy Worth. “We’ve practiced this same thing many a time just for fun. You never can tell when it pays to know how to get a fellow out of a hole. Scouts learn all kinds of clever stunts, you know, Gusty. This one is going to help you a heap, seems like.” Right then and there Gus Merrivale realized that he had been judging these boys from the wrong standpoint. Really, he had refused to give them credit for being other than a lot of silly chaps who wasted their time in camping out, and learning things that could never be of any earthly good to anyone. After this he was bound to look deeper into the movement. And his heart warmed toward Hugh and his chums in a way he would have never believed possible a few hours before. The rope grew taut, and then he felt himself being lifted from the ledge, and steadily raised foot by foot. Presently he could reach up and catch hold of the lowermost log that served as a barrier alongside the mountain road to prevent accidents to vehicles coming down the grade. It was with a thankfulness he could hardly find words to express that the boy was assisted over the railing, and found his feet firmly planted on the roadway. He drew a long breath of relief, possibly the very first that he had dared indulge in since being held up by those two brazen rogues. And then, urged by some better element in his nature, Gusty Merrivale grasped the hand of the patrol leader and squeezed it in his own, passing from Hugh to each of the other scouts. |
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