CHAPTER XIION THE QUARRY SHELF
There was an instant of incredulous horror on the cliff top. Then Polly’s smothered gasp broke the silence, and the two boys were on their feet. Short of the edge, Ned faltered for a moment, sick and trembling, and it was Bob who crouched on hands and knees and looked first down the steeply sloping face of rock. Beside him the earth was still trickling where Laurie’s unwary foot had broken off an overhanging crust.
For a second Bob’s gaze, fearfully searching the rocky débris far below, saw nothing. Then came a sharp cry of relief from Ned, who had now dropped beside him, and at the same moment Bob’s gaze, retraveling the face of rock, fell on Laurie.
About thirty feet below them he was, his feet set on a shelf scarcely four inches wide, his right hand stretched high and its fingers hooked overa still narrower ledge, his left hand flung outward, its palm pressed against the smooth surface. His head leaned against the raised shoulder, his forehead close to the rock. Viewed from below the quarry face looked perpendicular, as, indeed, it was farther around where the height was less, but here there was a perceptible slope, slight but sufficient to have saved Laurie from a headlong plunge to the strewn fragments at the base. His cap was gone and the miniature landslide had powdered his head and shoulders with red dust.
“Laurie!” called Ned tremulously.
For a space there was no answer. Then Laurie’s voice reached them, weak and muffled. “Yeah?”
He didn’t raise his face.
“Are you hurt?” asked Bob anxiously.
“No, not—yet.” He stopped and then added, “Scraped a bit.”
“Can you hold on until we—we—” Ned stopped because he couldn’t think just then what it was they could do.
“I reckon so,” answered Laurie. “Is there ... anything near my left hand ... I can reach, Ned?”
“No. Wait. Yes, there’s a sort of edge about six inches higher. Can you reach it? Further up. Nearer you now. That’s it!” Laurie’s questing fingers had found the spot. It wasn’t much of a hold, only a bit of rough rock projecting an inch or so from the smooth face. Ned was suddenly aware that Polly was crouched beside him, crying nervously. He tried hard to think clearly. After a moment he said: “Laurie, we’re going for a rope. It will take some time, but—but it’s the only thing I can think of. Can you hold on until we get back?”
“I’ll stick,” was the grim answer. His voice was clearer now and steadier. “How far down am I?”
“About thirty feet.” Ned stumbled to his feet. “No use both of us going, Bob,” he said hurriedly. “You stay. And Polly. I guess I can find rope at the quarry.” He was off then, running down the path. Bob dropped to his knees again beside Polly. Polly was speaking, trying to make her voice steady and confident.
“It won’t be long, Laurie,” she called. “Be—be brave and—”
“Hello, Polly,” answered Laurie from below,a faint reminder of his old insouciance in his voice. “Nice fix, eh?”
“Yes, but don’t worry, and—you’d better not talk.”
“Guess I’d rather,” answered Laurie. “Sort of keeps me from thinking about—things.” After a moment he continued. “Position’s sort of cramped, Polly. Bob there, or did he go, too?”
“No, I’m here,” answered Bob. “I’ve been thinking—”
“Don’t do it,” said Laurie. “I tried it, and now look at me! Wish my legs wouldn’t tremble. How wide’s the thing I’m standing on, Bob?”
“Three inches. Maybe four. What I was—”
“Rock?”
“Yes, a sort of narrow ledge across the face; a fault, as they call it. It runs downward at your left almost to the bottom, I’d say. Listen, Nod. Suppose I got a long pole and lowered one end to you and held the other. Would that be easier for you to hold on to?”
Laurie considered a moment. “I reckon so,” he answered. “My right arm’s just about dislocated. Try it, will you, Bob?”
Bob arose and disappeared into the woods.
“Wish I could stand on my heels for a while,” said Laurie. “My toes are trying to dance. Where’s Ned gone for the rope?”
“To the quarry, he said,” Polly replied. “If Bob and I made a sort of rope of our clothes, Laurie, wouldn’t it be better than a pole?”
“Don’t believe so. I wouldn’t feel awfully easy in my mind if I trusted to that sort of rope. Anyway, I don’t intend to have you make rags of your new dress!”
“Oh, Laurie, as if a new dress mattered!” exclaimed Polly. “I do wish it wasn’t so thin, though. Here comes Bob.”
Bob brought the dead trunk of a young black birch about five inches thick at the butt where, by hacking with his knife and twisting, he had managed to sever it. Now he slashed the larger branches away. “Good thing it’s dried out,” he said to Polly. “If it wasn’t it would be too heavy to hold. Hope it’s long enough!”
“Oh, Bob, I don’t believe it is,” said Polly anxiously.
“If it isn’t I can find one that is.”
But it was. When Bob had lowered the smaller end down the cliff at Laurie’s right and Lauriehad very carefully and rather fearfully unclasped his numb fingers from their rocky hold and clutched them about the tree there remained a few inches of the butt end above the level of the ground. Taking a firm hold with both hands at arm’s length as he lay facedown, Bob smiled his satisfaction.
“She’ll hold you, Nod, even if the shelf you’re standing on gives way! Polly can sit on my legs if she has to, and after that I’m good for all day.”
“Gee, that’s a lot better,” said Laurie. “Wow, that arm was almost out at the socket! Can you see this fault, as you call it from where you are?”
“Yes.”
“Look it over, will you? Does it go right to the bottom?”
“N-no, not quite, I guess. I can’t just see the end of it. There’s a three-cornered hunk of ledge sticking out down there. I guess it stops about a dozen feet from the bottom, Nod.”
“All right. Tell you what I’m figuring on. You check me up, you two. Suppose I have that rope that Ned’s gone for. It wouldn’t be anygood for me to try and climb it, for I’m aching all over and I just wouldn’t have the strength. If I tied it around me you three couldn’t pull me up over that edge. Of course if the rope’s long enough you fellows can lower me down, or I could put a turn of the rope around me and get down myself, I reckon. How about that?”
“You’d get awfully scraped up, I’m afraid,” said Bob. “I’m pretty sure the three of us can pull you up, Nod.”
“I don’t believe you could. It would be risky, anyway. Maybe, though, I can climb up somehow.”
“Perhaps,” offered Polly, “Ned will bring some one back with him to help.”
“Let’s hope so,” said Laurie. “If he doesn’t, the next best thing is a rope long enough to reach to the bottom. My idea was this, Bob.” He paused long enough to shift one foot gingerly and relieve his jumping nerves. “I thought I could tie the end of the rope under my shoulders and work along this ledge that I’m standing on until I got where I could jump or drop or something.”
“We could lower you the rest of the way if the rope lasted.”
“Yes, of course. Question is—” Laurie’s words were coming slower now, with pauses between—“question is, can you folks follow along the edge and hold your end of the rope?”
Bob turned his head and studied. After a minute he said: “Yes, I’m sure we can. The trees are close to the edge in places, but we could manage to pass the rope around them. We’ll see to that. Trouble is, Nod, there’s a place about ten or twelve yards from where you are where the blamed shelf sort of peters out for a ways, nearly five feet, I’d say.”
“That so?” Laurie deliberated. “Well, if you fellows took a turn around a tree with your end of the rope I reckon I could make it, eh?”
“Yes, I think you could,” Bob agreed. “Sure, you could!”
“All right. Guess that’s ... the best plan,” said Laurie tiredly. “How long’s Ned ... been gone?”
“Oh, hemustbe back in a minute!” cried Polly. “He’s been gone a long, long time.”
“Seen him down there ... yet?”
“He probably went to the office-building near the dock,” answered Bob. “You can’t see thatfrom here. Keep the old dander up, Nod.”
“I know,” agreed Laurie, “only ... I ain’t so well in my dander! Ought to see ... a doctor—”
“He’s coming!” cried Polly. “I hear him!”
Even as she spoke joyfully, Ned came into sight, panting, perspiring, flushed, a coil of rope over a shoulder. He fairly staggered up the last of the ascent and across the small clearing, his eyes questioning Polly’s anxiously.
“He’s all right,” cried Polly. Ned exhaled a deep breath of relief and struggled to disencumber himself of the rope. The girl sprang to his aid.
“I broke a window in the shed down there,” panted Ned. “This was all I could find, but it’s good and strong.” He began with trembling fingers to fashion a noose.
“Oh, Ned,” faltered Polly, “it’s so short!”
“How long?” called Bob.
“Forty feet,” replied Ned. “Maybe more. It’s more than long enough!”
Polly explained hurriedly, and Ned’s face fell as he stared despairingly at the cliff’s edge. Then his shoulders went back. “We’ll get himup,” he said grimly. “We’ll get him up or I’ll go down with him!” He went on bunglingly with the noose. Bob and Laurie were talking beyond the edge.
“Rope’s too short for your scheme,” Bob said as cheerfully as he could. “Only about forty or fifty feet, Nod.”
“Wouldn’t do, eh?” Laurie asked after a moment’s silence.
“No, too short by thirty feet, I guess. Twenty, anyway. We’ll have to pull you up, old chap. We’ll manage it.”
Ned was peering down now. “I’ve made a slip-noose, Laurie. We’ll lower it down, and you can get one arm through and then the other.”
“Wait a bit,” said Bob. “You’d better take hold of that ledge again with your right hand first, Nod. These branches will be in the way. Can you reach it? Higher yet. There you are! All right.” Bob pulled up the birch-tree, edged his body back, rolled over, and took several deep breaths. Then he rubbed his neck vigorously and got to his knees. “Polly,” he directed, “you take hold of the end of the rope and, for the love of Mike, don’t let go of it! Lower away now,Nid. Coming down, old chap. Left arm first. Straighten it up. All right. Get your hold again. Now the other. Hold the rope closer in, Nid. Right-o! Fine! Tighten up easy, Nid. How’s that, down there?”
“All right, thanks. Ned, don’t start anything until you’ve rested a bit. I can hear you puffing down here. I’m fine now and can spend the day here.”
Ned sank down and relaxed, breathing heavily and mopping his face. “Best way to do,” said Bob to him, “will be to take a turn of rope around a tree and let Polly take up the slack as we haul. It’ll be a hard tug, with the rope binding over the edge, but I guess we can do it.” Ned nodded, took a deep breath, and stood up.
“Let’s go,” he said shortly.