“I’ll have the rope around him before he moves,” was the reply.
Working with one hand, as Frank was obliged to do, it was a difficult task to manage the rope. If the cable were dropped, all Frank’s work would have gone for nothing, and before he could do it over again Darrel would probably revive and slip from the bowlder.
First, Frank passed the rope around the trunk of the stunted tree. A brief examination of the tree had convinced him that it was strongly wedged into the rocks and could be depended upon to support Darrel’s weight.
In getting the hempen strands around the tree, Frank was obliged to push the rope over the trunk, then hold it in his teeth while he withdrew his hand and passed it around the trunk a second time. Again taking the cable in his teeth, he withdrew his hand to lay hold of it once more. Thus he had made a half hitch around the tree and could control the rope under the pull of a heavy weight.
His next step was to make the end of the cable fast about Darrel’s shoulders, under the arms. This was not so difficult as the work with the tree had been, for Darrel hung from the bowlder with head and shoulders down.
After getting the cable about Darrel’s body, Frank used his right hand and his teeth and rove the end into a bowline knot. Scarcely had he accomplished this, when Darrel uttered a low groan and attempted to shift his position. The moment he did this, he slipped from the bowlder.
A yell of horror came from Ballard and Clancy. To their frightened eyes it looked as though both Darrel and Merriwell would be precipitated to the bottom of the cañon. The rope, however, and Frank’s quickness served to avert the catastrophe.
Releasing his left arm from the bowlder, Frank gripped the trailing rope under the tree with both hands. His weight, on one side of the dwarfed trunk, served to balance Darrel’s weight on the other side, and the two, for a few terrible moments, swung into mid-air. Then, carefully but as quickly as possible, Frank found fresh footholds, and so lessened the weight on his end of the rope. Just as he had planned, Darrel began slipping downward, the rope sliding through Frank’s hands and around the tree trunk.
Drooping limply in the noose that encircled his body, Darrel twisted and swayed in sickening fashion as he dropped foot by foot down the face of the cliff. In a few minutes he had been lowered into the outstretched arms of Ballard and Clancy, and the lads below sent up a cheer that reverberated loudly between the cañon walls.
Frank’s descent was made safely and speedily, for he knotted the rope around the trunk of the tree and slid down its length to the side of his chums. Ballard had Darrel’s head on his knee, and Clancy had gone to the creek for a capful of cold water. Merriwell, breathing heavily, dropped down on the rocks.