If Ballard and Clancy had watched Merriwell with bated breath before, when only the recovery of a five-dollar football was to be the result of his dangerous climb, how much greater was their trepidation now, when the life of a chum was at stake?
The worst feature of the nerve-racking situation for Ballard and Clancy was this, that they were absolutely powerless to help Merriwell. No more than one could make the climb through the fissure, and no more than one could work around the jutting bowlder and the stunted tree. For the lads in the bottom of the cañon, a little active work would have loosened the tension of their taut nerves and made the situation more endurable. There was nothing for them to do just then, however, but to wait and watch.
The swiftness and precision with which Frank scaled the fissure aroused the admiration of his chums, even in that breathless moment. Frank’s brain was as cool and his nerves as steady as though life or death was not hanging on the result of his efforts.
“Good old Merry!” whispered Ballard huskily. “He’s going as steady as a clock, and doesn’t seem to have the least notion that Darrel may tumble down on him at any moment.”
“Talk about your true sportsmen,” returned Clancy, “if a piece of work like that doesn’t prove a fellow is one, then I don’t know what does.”
With the rope trailing after him and gradually paying out from the coil below as he climbed higher and higher, Merriwell continued his rapid ascent of the crevice. On reaching the narrow part, he shifted around it with an agility and skill that were wonderful to see. Getting back into the fissure again, at a point where it widened, he made his way on hands and knees to the place directly over the point where the wall sloped inward to the base, and began another inward slope to the shelf.
Getting out of the crevice and upon the slope was a hair-raising performance, but Frank accomplished it successfully. Then began the crawl from projection to projection and from one stunted bush to another, up the face of the cliff. At last the daring youth was directly under the bowlder and the stunted tree that supported the unconscious form of Darrel. With his left arm over the bowlder and his feet in crevices of the rocks, Frank began removing the rope from his waist with his right hand.
“Good work, Chip!” shouted Ballard. “What are you going to do now? How do you expect to get Darrel down? Can’t we do something to help?”
“Nothing you fellows can do, Ballard,” Frank answered. “I’ve got to hang on with my eye winkers and work with one hand.”
“If Darrel should make a move,” cried Clancy, in a spasm of fear, “he’d bring you both down!”