Part 8 (1/2)

”All right. I'm doing well now. Just keep the line fairly steady so that I won't lose my footing.”

He was obliged to raise his voice now, being a long way down the slope, with the goal still far from him.

”Who would have ever thought it so far?” Tad asked himself. ”I'm sure now that the rope will not reach.”

Believing that he could obtain a better footing a little to the right of him, he motioned for more rope, then raised his hand aloft as a signal that he had sufficient for present needs, all of which Stacy repeated with more or less correctness.

Tad had gained a broad, shelving rock this time. Above him projected a rocky roof that reminded him of the roof over his mother's porch at home. It shut off his view of the cliff above him entirely. Straight down below him roared the river, here and there a spout of white spray shooting up into the air, revealing the presence of a hidden, treacherous rock.

It was an impressive moment for Tad Butler up there alone, with nothing between himself and sudden death save a slender quarter-inch strand of rope.

But though he felt the loneliness of his position, he felt no fear; he was impressed with the solitary grandeur of it all. Time was pressing, however, and he decided that he must continue his descent.

Stepping back to his former position, he started to grope his way downward. For several minutes he made more rapid headway than he had at any time before.

He was congratulating himself that he would soon be at the bottom of the cliff, which lay about twenty feet below him.

All at once he gave a gasp as he felt the rock crumble beneath his feet. He had thrown his weight on a piece of crumbling limestone and it had given way.

At that moment he had some two or three feet of slack rope, that he had motioned to them to pay out, as the way was not now nearly so steep.

Grasping wildly for some projecting rock to break the jolt which he knew would come when he reached the end of his rope, and perhaps seriously hurt him, the boy was able to stay his progress a little.

However, the pressure that his body threw on the slender rope was so great as to jolt nearly all the air from his lungs.

Then Tad suddenly made another and terrifying discovery.

He was going down. He was falling.

At the top of the cliff another scene was being enacted. The sudden jolt on the rope had occurred just after the boys had paid out the rope beyond the place where Tad had spliced it before beginning his descent.

The strain was too great for it. The ropes parted at a weak spot near the knot.

The Pony Riders were too much stunned to do more than gaze upon that which they believed meant the death of their companion.

Chunky, who appeared to be the coolest of any, had been watching the knot approaching him with almost fascinated interest. He was speculating what would happen should the knot chance to come apart. And the very emergency that he was considering did happen.

”The rope's broken!” shouted the Professor.

But Chunky had no need to be told that. He knew it already, almost before they realized it.

With great presence of mind, and an agility that none would have given him credit for, the fat boy threw himself upon the line that was whisking over the cliff.

Somehow he managed to fasten both hands on it.

The boy began to slide along the ground with the speed of an express train.

”Grab him! Grab him, somebody! He's going over the cliff!”