The end came suddenly when it did come. At a moment when even Larry’s fine endurance was at its last gasp they saw a camp-fire twinkling far below them. They didn’t run down to it; they merely let go all holds and tumbled. The camp was that of their own hard-rock men at the foot of the Nose, and they nearly rolled into the embers of the fire before they could stop themselves.
It was Mr. Ackerman, their chief, who picked them up and listened to their stammered-out report of the day’s adventures. This time there was no word of commendation for what they had done; but that was only because the time they had fought so hard to save had suddenly become vitally precious.
Almost as in a dream they heard the chief snapping out his orders; heard the bustle and clamor of a camp turning out to go into swift action; heard the camp cook hammering upon his dish-pan to awaken the laggards.
Dickie Maxwell, smiling beatifically, turned sleepily to his exhausted running mate.
“Glory be, Larry!” he muttered weakly; “we’re going to make a fight for it; a crossing fight, at that. Here’s—hoping—we’ll be there—to see!” And then, still more sleepily: “Huh! if anybody should rise up to inquire—I’ll say we put one over on a fellow named Jones, after all—what?”
CHAPTER IX
“GANGWAY!”
“Ye-e-e wow!” Dick Maxwell, fighting sleepily to get his arms free from the tightly rolled blanket, yawned cavernously. Then: “Whoosh!—Larry, old scout!—wake up!”
The blanket roll in the other bunk stirred like a chrysalis about to burst and let loose whatever sort of bug it contained. Then a curly red head appeared, followed by a pair of stretching arms.
Dick sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bunk.