"I thought I heard something," he breathed. "I know I heard something."
He listened intently and shivered.
Yet the only sounds that broke the stillness of the mountain night were the faint calls of the night birds and the distant cry of a roaming cougar.
"H-e-l-p!"
Faint though the call was, it smote Tad Butler's ears like a blow. Never had the sound of a human voice thrilled him as did that plaintive appeal from the black depths below.
He hesitated, to make sure that it was not a delusion of his excited imagination.
Once more the call came.
"Help!"
This time, however, it was uttered in the shrill, piercing voice of Tad Butler himself, and the men back there by the camp fire started to their feet in sudden alarm while Ned Rector and Stacy Brown came tumbling from their tents in terrified haste.
"What is it! What is it?" they shouted.