“Nixy on that!” Dick replied emphatically. “No wild animal, not even my friend, a Gila Monster, would care to try to climb that smooth toboggan slide. Puzzle to me is how Jerry is doing it.”
“Hark!” Mary whispered, holding up one finger. “Did you hear—”
Dick plunged in with “a gun shot?”
“Not at all!” Mary flared at him. She ran to the hole and knelt by it and listened. “I thought I heard Jerry call far, far away,” she said as she stood up and went back to stand by Dora.
“Ten minutes.” Dick glanced from his watch to Harry. “Go back a way, will you, and look up at the rock house. If Jerry called, maybe it was from up there.”
Mary, no longer trying to hide her anxiety, ran beyond the leaning ledge and looked up. How her face shone with joy and relief!
“It’s Jerry!” she cried, beckoning the others. “He’s up there standing in the door.”
Harry cupped one hand about his ear. “What say, Jerry? All right. Sure thing.”
“What did he say?” Jerry had disappeared in the house when the others joined Mary and Harry.
“He said there’s an old wire ladder contraption that he’s going to drop down to us,” Harry explained as Jerry reappeared on the ledge. Gradually a wire-rope ladder slid down the steep cliff.