CHAPTER XII.

TUBBY'S PERIL.

"That's queer; I don't see a sign of him."

Merritt Crawford, on the return of the Boy Scouts with ropes and help, peered about the ledge for a trace of his leader, but in vain.

"He can't have gone over, too."

It was Blinky who suggested this alarming possibility.

"Don't suggest such a thing," protested Merritt. "Hullo, Tubby!--below there--are you all right?"

"Fine and dandy, but snake down a rope as soon as you can, will you, and you might tie a sandwich on it, if you don't mind."

"You can have your sandwich when we get you up," promised Merritt, as the others, despite their worry over Rob's disappearance, broke into a loud laugh at Tubby's unconcerned manner.

"Come on, now, and lend a hand with the ropes," ordered Blinky, who had brought several lariats up on his pony, and was busily engaged in tying them together so as to form a long lifeline. Tubby had not yet been informed of Rob's disappearance, as it was feared that it might unnerve him.

A fresh difficulty now presented itself. On the narrow ledge there was not sufficient room for the holders of the rope to brace themselves. To haul up the stout youth, therefore, it was necessary to return to the summit of the cliff. This was quickly done, but you may be sure that great caution was exercised in mounting the steps cut in the rock face. The fate of Tubby was fresh in their minds, even without the reminder that he was still clinging to his uncertain support, so far below them.

Blinky began looking about for a suitable tree, around which to take a turn of the rope, as soon as they reached the summit. One was found about fifteen feet back from the lip of the precipice.

"Now, then," ordered the cow-puncher, as he tied a big loop in one end of his long line, "we'll see if this will reach."

He dropped it over the edge of the cliff and dangled it about so that it rattled against the rock. This was in order that the fat boy could hear it and indicate in which direction he wished it swung.

"Is it near you, now, Tubby?" shouted Blinky, peering down into the darkness and tentatively swinging the rope.

"A little more to the right," came up the stout boy's voice, as steady as if he was asking for another helping of ice cream.

"That boy's grit clear through, even if he does like to play the giddy goat sometimes," muttered the puncher.

"How's that?" he asked a minute later.

"Wait, I'll reach out and grab it."

"Don't you dare do any such thing!" almost yelled the cow-puncher. "You might lose your balance, and----"

He stopped with a gasp. A jerk had come at the other end of the rope. Down there, out of sight, Tubby had hold of it. A succession of jerks told the holder of the rope on the cliff edge that he was making the loop fast about him.

"All right!" finally hailed Tubby. Then in imitation of an elevator runner:

"Go--ing up!"

"Hold on a minute," croaked out Blinky, even his iron nerve a trifle shaken now that the crucial moment was near.

He ran back to the tree and took a deft turn round the trunk. Then he extended the end of the rope to the boys and told them to "tail on."

"What are you going to do?" asked Merritt.

"I'm going to stand at the edge of the cliff and transmit orders from below. Mind you, obey them the instant you hear them."

"All right. We will, Blinky," came in chorus.

"Very well. Now hold on and when I tell you to start hauling, pull with all your might. That boy's a heavy load."

"A hundred and forty pounds and still growing," volunteered Harry Harkness.

"Well, that rope held a six-hundred-pound steer, so I guess it'll stand his weight. All I'm afraid of is a knot giving. I made them in the dark, you know."

The cow-puncher, after giving a few more final instructions, ran to the cliff edge.

"All right?" he shouted down.

"All right!" rejoined Tubby.

Blinky straightened up and turned back toward the boys, holding onto the rope.

"Haul away, boys," he ordered.

A cheer burst from the throats of the Boy Scouts as they tailed on the lifeline, and walked backward from the tree with it.

"Whoa!" came a shout from below suddenly.

"Whoa!" yelled Blinky, repeating the word.

"What's the matter?" he hailed down, as the hoisting movement stopped.

"Why, I'm bumping my delicate knees," came up in Tubby's voice.

"Can't be helped," yelled down Blinky. Then hailing the hauling line:--

"Pull away, boys."

Steadily they pulled till the fat boy had been raised twenty feet or more from his tree. Suddenly he hailed Blinky.

"Whoa!" roared the cow-puncher.

Instantly the hoisting ceased.

"Now, what is it, Tubby?"

"I just thought of something."

"What?"

"Say, lots of folks would pay money to see this, wouldn't they?"

"Never mind that now. Are you all right?"

"Yes, except my knees."

"Ha-ul a-way."

The boys on the other end of the rope hauled steadily now, and the fat boy drew nearer and nearer to the ledge.

As he rose higher, hanging suspended like a spider from the end of his gossamer thread between the sky and the ground, a sudden thought struck Blinky. It would be manifestly impossible to haul Tubby over the edge of the ledge which projected like the eaves of a roof. Hardly had the thought flashed across his mind before a shout of alarm came from the boys, simultaneously with a sharp:

Crack!

"The rope!" came a wild yell from the tree.

"It's broken!"

Blinky went white, and his knees shook. At the same instant the rope began to snake hissingly over the edge of the precipice. It had parted. Tubby was once more dropping downward like a stone.

"Catch it!" roared Blinky, regardless of his own peril, throwing himself onto the fast-retreating rawhide. He gripped it, but was carried like a feather before the wind toward the edge of the cliff by the descending Tubby's weight. In another moment--for he obstinately refused to let go--he would have been over the edge, when the line suddenly tightened.

"Hooray! I've got it."

The shout came in Merritt's voice.

The boy, with great presence of mind, had managed to catch the rope, and secure it before its end whipped round the trunk of the tree. As the knot which had parted was in the section of the rawhide above the tree, this was possible. Had the rope broken between the tree and the cliff both Tubby and Blinky would have been dashed to death.

"What parted?" roared Blinky, as soon as he had recovered his senses.

"One of the knots. It slipped. It's all right, now we've fixed it!" hailed Merritt back.

"Merritt, you're all right," shouted the cow-puncher, "if it hadn't been for you, I'd have been down among the cattle now. I'd have traveled by lightening express, too."

As it was dark, the boys had not been able to see what the cow-puncher had done, so it was not till long afterward that they found out the meaning of his remark and learned of his courageous action.

The cow-puncher feared that the sudden drop and the danger of the rope breaking again under the renewed strain might have frightened Tubby into a swoon. To his intense joy, however, in reply to his hail there came up a cheerful:

"Say, what are you fellows doing? Having a game up there? You almost jolted the daylights out of me."

"All right, we'll be more careful in future, Tubby," breathed the puncher, not daring to tell the boy what had actually happened.

"Are you near the ledge, Tubby?" hailed the puncher suddenly, after an interval of hauling.

"Yes, I think so. I can see a dark thing like a shelf right above me."

"Stop!" shouted the cow-puncher to the rope handlers.

The most difficult part of the enterprise was yet to come. They had to get the boy up on the ledge. To accomplish this at first was a poser, but Blinky finally solved it. Enjoining the rope handlers not to make a move till he hailed them, he slipped down the stone steps and reached the ledge. Arrived there, he peered over into the black void under his feet. Swinging a short distance below, he could distinguish a blacker object than the surrounding night. He could also make out a sound of humming. It was Tubby crooning to himself as he swung on the end of the frail rope:

"See-saw! see-saw! On a s-um-mers day!"

"Well, I'll be extra special, double-jiggered!" breathed the puncher, as he heard.

He knelt on the edge of the ledge and spoke to the vocalist.

"How's your nerve, Tubby?"

"Fine, but it needs feeding," was the cheerful response.

"All right, you'll do," rejoined the cow-puncher. "Now, then, Tubby, I want you to hang to the edge of this ledge by your finger tips for just two minutes. Think you can do it?"

"I'll have to, won't I?" innocently inquired the stout youth.

"Yes, or----"

"Take a tumble," Tubby finished for him.

"Never mind about that," spoke Blinky sharply. Then cupping his hands to his mouth, he shouted upward:

"Haul away! Slow, now!"

He placed his fingers on the taut rope and felt it slip upward through them.

"Good old ropes," he murmured; "stretched like a fiddle string and sound as a ship's cable."

Presently Tubby was hauled up level with the ledge.

"Stop!" roared Blinky.

He could have reached over in the darkness, and, catching the stout boy's hands, have hauled him up beside him--he could have, that is if Tubby had been able to assist him by digging his feet into the rock face. But this he could not do, as he was dangling from the lip of the ledge, fully three feet out from the face of the precipice, and with four hundred feet of empty space under the soles of his shoes. Moreover, in such case the cow-puncher would have nothing to brace himself with, and there would have been grave danger of his being dragged over by the other's suspended weight. Instead, therefore--necessity being the mother of invention--he had thought up a daring plan. What this was we shall soon see.

"Can you grip the edge with your fingers, Tubby?" whispered the cow-puncher.

"Yes," rejoined Tubby, reaching up.

"All right, then, grab it--and in Heaven's name, hold on!"

With a single swift stroke of his knife, the cow-puncher slashed the rope, leaving Tubby with the loop draped uselessly under his shoulders. The fat boy's hold on the edge of the ledge was all that now lay between him and eternity.

Blinky's breath came sharp and hard as he rapidly adjusted the rope around himself just under the shoulders. Then leaning forward, he seized the stout boy's wrists in his steel-muscled grip.

"Haul!" he bellowed.

The line tautened just as the cow-puncher braced his muscles.

"Stop!"

The line became motionless, holding the cow-puncher firmly on the ledge, while his hands gripped Tubby's wrists.

"Now," breathed Blinky to himself, bracing every muscle till they seemed to crack. The sweat rolled down his face, and his features became contorted. Tubby was a heavier load than he had bargained for. But pluck and grit won out, and after a few seconds of this Titanic struggle the stout boy stood safe on the ledge beside his rescuer.

"Got him!" muttered Blinky triumphantly. But even as he spoke he almost lost the rescued boy. All at once Tubby became as limp as a half-emptied sack of grain, and seemed about to slide backward out of the cow-puncher's arms.

"Hey, hold on, there! What's the matter?" roared Blinky in amazement, dragging him back.

"Gone out, by the great horn spoon!" he exclaimed, as the rescued boy sank heavily in a dead swoon on the ledge beside his rescuer.