Part 12 (2/2)

”h.e.l.lo, what's that? I remember now, I smelled smoke or thought I did.”

Tad sniffed the chill air suspiciously.

”It is smoke,” he decided. ”Maybe I've set the woods on fire with my matches. Guess I'll climb down and investigate.”

He started to move down the side of the ledge when it occurred to him that perhaps it would be better to investigate from where he was; he did not know what danger he might be running into if he were to climb down without first having made sure that it was perfectly safe to do so. Just what he might meet with he did not know. But he felt an uneasy sense of impending danger.

”Often feel that way when I first wake up, especially if I've been eating pie the night before,” he confided to himself, in order to urge his courage back to life.

Bending forward he peered from side to side, but was unable to find a single trace of light, anywhere about him. If it were a fire it must be some distance away, he concluded.

”If it were some distance away, I wouldn't smell it. The wind has died down. No, the fire that smoke comes from is right near by me,”

he whispered.

The sense of human habitation near him caused his pulses to beat more rapidly. The question that remained for him to decide, was who was it that had started the fire?

Tad Butler determined to find out if possible, and at once.

He crept cautiously to the right, feeling his way along the ledge, not being sure how near he was to the edge. He found it more suddenly than he had expected, and narrowly missed falling over head first.

”Whew! That was a close call,” he muttered. ”I must be more careful.”

There was no sign of either smoke or fire below him, as he observed after getting his balance again. He drew back cautiously and worked his way to the side that he had been facing, yet with no better result than before.

There yet remained two sides to be investigated--the one he had climbed up and the other that lay to the left of him. Tad chose the latter as the most likely to give him the information he sought. However, he found that the edge lay some distance away. The table of rock was much wider than he had imagined, when he first ascended to it.

The way was rough. Once the lad's foot slipped into a crevice. In seeking to withdraw it he gave the ankle a wrench that caused him to settle down on the rocks with a half moan of pain. His shoe had become wedged in between the rocks so that he had difficulty in withdrawing it at all, and the injured ankle gave him a great deal of pain as he struggled to release himself.

”Guess I'll have to take off my shoe. Hope I haven't sprained my ankle. I'll be in a fine mess if I have,” he grumbled.

The ankle gave him considerable trouble; but he rubbed it all of ten minutes, and he found that he could endure his shoe again. He was full of curiosity as well as anxiety to learn the cause of the smoke, which, by this time, seemed to be coming his way in greater volume.

After having relaced the shoe and leggin, Tad started on again, this time on all fours, not trusting himself to try to walk, feeling his way ahead of him with his hands, which he considered the safer way to do.

”There's somebody down there,” he whispered, after a long interval of slow creeping over the rocks. ”I wonder who it is? Perhaps they are looking for me. I'll give them a surprise if they are.”

The surprise, however, was to be Tad's.

At last he reached the edge of the little b.u.t.te. Slowly stretching his neck and lying flat on his stomach, he peered over.

A cloud of black smoke rolled up into his face, causing the lad to withdraw hastily.

”Aka-c-h-e-w,” sneezed Tad, burying his face in his hands.

”Whew, what a smudge! I'll bet they heard that sneeze.”

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