“I have been thinking,” Jack stated after a moment’s thought, “that we might possibly work our way downward by circling about the pit.”
“You mean wind ourselves down like a cork-screw?” asked Frank.
“That’s it exactly!”
“Why, the walls are almost perpendicular!” Frank asserted. “We never can get down there in the world!”
“Then we’ll have to hasten back to camp and get a rope,” said Jack.
“I just can’t go away and leave Harry lying there like that!” exclaimed Frank. “I just can’t do it. We’ve got to get down into that devil’s hole in some way. It may be difficult but we’ve got to do it.”
“If we could only get over to the other side,” Jack said, “we might be able to work our way down a part of the distance. It seems to me that the rock is rougher there, and the side not quite so steep.”
“It does look that way,” Frank answered, “and I think we’d better try to get over there. It will help some, even if we can’t get clear to the bottom. We can at least find out whether Harry is alive.”
“I’ll never leave him lying there, alive or dead!” exclaimed Jack.
The boys at once set out on a difficult journey toward the far side of the Devil’s Punch Bowl. In many places they had only a rim of rock less than six inches in diameter for a foot-hold. On one side, hundreds of feet above them stretched the snow-covered summit, while on the other side lay the precipice dipping into the Devil’s Punch Bowl. At last, after great exertion and very many narrow escapes, the boys reached the desired location and looked about.