But Cameron had not broken his neck. Instead, he had broken an arm, and one foot had been badly bruised by a falling stone. He was unconscious when the boys lifted him and laid him in an easier position.
The two men were at once searched for weapons and left for the time being to take care of themselves. There was no fear of their escaping, for one of Fenton's legs had sustained a compound fracture and Cameron's foot was badly injured.
"What next?" asked Will as the two boys stood facing the spot where they believed George, Sandy and Bert to be buried under many tons of rock. "It seems as if we ought to do something for the boys!"
"I'm afraid it's too late!" replied Ed, dejectedly.
"We never can dig under those rocks without help," commented Will, "therefore, I think we'd better be on the watch for Tommy and Frank and the surgeon. They surely ought to be somewhere near the cottage by this time, if not already in it."
"If they've had such blooming bad luck as we have," Ed observed, "they're probably in jail somewhere! I don't think I ever saw anything in a worse mess! The very Old Nick seems to be after us!"
"This," Will observed with a grave smile, "is what we call a quiet little Boy Scout excursion! We have visited the Pictured Socks, the Everglades, the Great Continental Divide, the Hudson Bay country and got trapped in an anthracite mine in Pennsylvania since we started out on our quests for adventure."
"You seem to have found adventure all right!" smiled Ed.
"You bet we have!" replied Will.
The boys made still another inspection of the spot where the cliff had fallen, and thought that they heard a faint call from the inside.