Dave felt much perplexed, not knowing whether it would be better to try to find Jasniff or to make a search in the vicinity where he had had the fall.
“I suppose it would be sheer nonsense to try to follow Jasniff on foot if he went off on my horse,” the young civil engineer reasoned. “I might as well take a look down below and make sure that I didn’t drop those things when I fell.”
With his hurt shoulder and lame ankle, it was almost as much of a task to get down the rocks as it had been to climb up. As well as he was able, he took the same course he had followed in the fall, and he kept his eyes wide open for the things he had lost. But five minutes of slipping and sliding brought him to the top of the little cliff without seeing anything but dirt, rocks, and bushes. Then he had to make a wide detour to get to the bottom of the cliff.
“I suppose it’s a wild-goose chase, and I’ll have my work for my pains,” he grumbled. “Oh, rats! Why did I have to fall in with Jasniff on this trip? I wish that fellow was at the North Pole or down among the Hottentots, or somewhere where he couldn’t bother me!”
Dave began to search around in the vicinity of the spot where he had fallen. He was almost ready to give up in despair when his eye caught sight of a white-looking object some distance below. Eagerly he climbed down to the place where the object lay, and the next moment set up a cry of joy.
“Hurrah! Here are Mr. Obray’s documents!” he exclaimed. “I hope they are all right.”
A hasty inspection convinced him that the legal-looking envelope and its contents were intact. Having inspected them carefully, he placed the packet inside of his shirt.
“I won’t take any more chances with it,” he told himself. “Somebody will have to rip my clothing off to get that envelope away.”
With the envelope safe in his possession once more, Dave felt exceedingly light-hearted. But the letter from Jessie, as well as the communication from Uncle Dunston, and the pocketbook with the forty odd dollars in it, were still missing, and he spent some time looking for those things.
“It doesn’t matter so much about the letters, even though I hate to part with the one from Jessie,” he reasoned. “But I’d like to set my eyes on that pocketbook with the forty-two or forty-three dollars it held.”