Dr. Dan’s cries grew fainter. All gave the faithful guide up for lost.
“It’s no use!” groaned Dick. “I must go after him, though. I said I would, and so I will!”
“Oh, Dick, don’t go! Don’t go!” pleaded Clara.
“For gracious sake don’t try it!” shouted Charley. “It’s all your life is worth, Dick!”
But Dick had already started, and there was no such thing as holding him back.
And yet if he had only known it, there was a safe and easy way down over those cliffs not ten yards distant from the hut.
But the way Dick had taken was not only very difficult, but highly dangerous. It was frightfully steep, too, with scarce a foothold, and as smooth as glass.
Down this terrible incline the Plesiosaurus slid easily enough, and no doubt it had come up the same way many times, its queer webbed feet acting as suckers like the feet of a fly.
But Dick possessed no such power.
He could only crouch down “on his hunkies,” as the boys say, and go sliding along after old P. D.