Once they had to get wooden crowbars and pry a huge boulder loose that had fallen so as to completely block progress. Fortunately it had been easy to move it a few inches at a time, until they sent it into a gulf that yawned alongside the trail, to hear it crash downward for hundreds of feet, and make the face of the mountain quiver under the shock.
In this fashion they had managed to get a third of the way down from the apex of the ridge, and Ned, comparing the time with the progress made, announced it as his opinion that he believed they would be easily able to make the bottom before night came on.
“That sounds all to the good to me, Ned,” declared Jimmy, with a broad grin on his freckled face.
“Hope you’re a true prophet, that’s all,” said Harry.
“I agree with Ned,” Jack broke in with, “and say, we ought to make the foot of the range before night, the way we’re going, unless we hit up against some bad spot that’ll hold us up worse than we’ve struck yet.”
“That isn’t likely to happen,” Ned observed, “because the further down we get the easier the going ought to be.”
“But I notice that the holes are just as deep,” Harry told him.
“And a fall would jolt a feller as hard too, seems like,” Jimmy admitted as he craned his neck to look over at a place where the trail was only a few feet wide with a blank wall on the right and an empty void on the left.
Harry nervously caught his breath, and called out:
“Better be careful there, Jimmy, how you bend over and look down. You might get dizzy and take a lurch or the frisky burro give a lug just then and upset you. We all think too much of you to want to gather up your remains down at the bottom of a precipice.”
Jimmy laughed and seemed pleased at the compliment. He did not again bother about looking over, but occupied himself with managing his pack animal, which kept showing an increasing desire to hasten. At one point Ned had stopped to tighten the ropes that held the pack on his burro, and in some manner Jimmy managed to get at the head of the little procession that wound, single file, down that steep mountain trail.
It was Ned’s intention to assume the lead again at the first opportunity, when he could pass the others. Meantime he thought he could keep an observant eye on Jimmy, so as to restrain him in case he began to show any sign of rashness.
After all it was not so much Jimmy’s fault that it happened, but the fact that his burro had quite lost its head in the growing desire to get down to the green pastures from which it had been debarred so very long, and for which it was undoubtedly hungering greatly.
That the unlucky animal should chance to make that stumble just at the time of passing another narrow place in the trail, where the conditions again caused them to move in single file, was one of those strange happenings which sometimes spring unannounced upon the unwary traveler.
Jimmy at one time even walked along with the end of the rope wound about his waist in a lazy fashion; but Ned had immediately told him never to think of doing such a thing again, when there was even the slightest chance of the burro slipping over the edge of the sloping platform and dragging his master along. But right then Jimmy had such a rigid clutch upon the rope that he did not seem to know enough to let go when the pack animal stumbled, tried to cling desperately to the rocky edge, and then vanished from sight into the gulf.
In fact Jimmy’s first idea seemed to be a desire to drag the tottering animal back to safety, and it was because he was tugging for all he was worth on the rope that he was pulled over the edge himself.
The other three scouts seemed to be petrified with horror when they saw their plucky but rash chum dragged over. None of them could jump to his assistance on account of the burros being in the way and plunging and kicking wildly, as though terrified at the fate that had overtaken their mate.
Ned was at the end of the line, and Harry, though not far from the spot where the terrible accident happened, seemed to be too terrified to know what to do, until it was all over, and poor Jimmy had vanished from their view.
CHAPTER II.
LUCKY JIMMY
“Oh! Ned, he’s gone – poor Jimmy – pulled right over by that burro!” Harry was crying as he stood there almost petrified with horror, while his own pack animal acted as though it might be terrified by the fate that had overtaken its mate, for it snorted and pulled back strenuously.
Ned knew that unless the remaining three burros were quieted a still greater disaster was apt to overtake them.
“Speak to your animal, Harry; get him soothed right away! Easy now, Teddy, stand still where you are! It’s all right, old fellow! Back up against the rock and stand still there.”
Ned as he spoke in this strain managed to throw a coil or two of the leading rope over a jutting spur of rock. Then turning round, he crept on hands and knees to the edge of the yawning precipice and looked over, shuddering to note that while not nearly so high as that other precipice had been, at the same time the fall must be all of seventy feet.
There at the foot he could see the unfortunate burro on his back and with never a sign of life about him. Doubtless that tumble must have effectually broken his neck and ended his days of usefulness.
“Do you see him, Ned?” asked a trembling voice close by, and the scout leader knew that Jack too had crawled to the edge in order to discover what had become of poor Jimmy McGraw.
“Not yet,” replied Ned, sadly; “he may be hidden under the burro, or lying in among that clump of bushes.”
“But glory be, he ain’t, all the same!” said a voice just then that thrilled them all. “If ye be lookin’ over this way ye’ll discover the same Jimmy aholdin’ on with a death grip to a fine old rock that sticks out from the face of the precipice. But ’tis me arms that feel like they was pulled part way out of the sockets with the jerk; and I’d thank ye to pass a rope down as soon as ye get over the surprise of havin’ a ghost address ye.”
“Bully for you, Jimmy!” exclaimed Jack; “seems like you’ve got nearly as many lives as a cat. Hold on like anything, because Ned’s getting a rope right now, and he’ll heave it over in three shakes of a lamb’s tail. Don’t look down, Jimmy, but keep your eye on me. We’ll pull you out of that in a jiffy, sure we will. And here comes Ned right now with the rope. He’s even made a noose at the end, so as to let you put your foot in the same. Keep holding on, Jimmy, old fellow!”
In this manner, then, did Jack try to encourage the one in peril, so as to stiffen his muscles, and cause him to keep his grip on that friendly crag that had saved him from sharing the dreadful fate of the wretched burro.
Jimmy had fortunately kept his wits about him, and although the strain was very great, because he could find no rest for his dangling feet, he managed to hold his awkward position until the rope came within reach.
“Be careful, now, how you manage!” called Ned, from his position fifteen feet above the head of the imperiled scout. “Let me angle for your foot, and once I get the noose fast around it, you can rest your weight safely. But Jimmy, remember not to let go with one hand, because your other might slip. Leave it all to me.”
Ned was already working the rope so that the open noose twirled slowly around, coming in contact with Jimmy’s foot, which the other thrust out purposely. While no expert in such angling and more or less worked up with fears lest Jimmy suddenly lose his precarious hold, and go down to his death, Ned presently met with success. The noose passed over the waiting foot, and was instantly jerked tight by a quick movement from above.
By then Jack was alongside the scout master eager to lend his assistance when it came to the point of lifting Jimmy. Harry, too, hovered just behind them, unable to look over because it made him dizzy when so terribly excited, but only too ready to take hold of the end of the rope and bracing his feet against some projection