It was no pond to which he had descended, but a good-sized stream which flowed rapidly to the northward, being hedged in on one side by the cliff, and on the other by a rock-bound forest. The stream disappeared around a curve of the cliff.
A rapid search along the sandy shore under the cliff revealed nothing more than Harry’s rifle, which had caught in a bush just over the water’s edge. This gave Joe a clew to where his companion had fallen, and he searched eagerly in the water at that point.
“Not a sign,” he murmured after reaching into the stream as far as possible. Then he cut down a sapling with his hunting knife and stirred up the water with that, and with no better result.
“The river is flowing so swiftly it must have carried Harry’s body away,” he reasoned. “Perhaps I had better move around the curve of the cliff and make a search there.”
All this while Joe had heard distant firing and yelling, and now, as he straightened up, he saw a glow in the sky, as of a conflagration.
“Something is on fire,” he thought. “And it isn’t a plain camp-fire either. Oh, I trust to Heaven that the others are safe!”
Slowly and painfully he crawled along at the foot of the cliff until the bend was reached. Here a footing was uncertain, and more than once he slipped into the stream up to his ankles.
Around the bend the water swirled and foamed, on its way to a series of rough rocks. Here was another cliff and the stream appeared to disappear beneath this, much to Joe’s wonder.
“If it’s an underground river good-by to poor Harry,” he told himself.
Again he called out, not once, but a score of times, and the only answer he received was an echo from the rocks.