"Yes," said Hugh. "Don't bother about Jack, he'll do it." It took but a moment for Hugh to pass his arm around the tree; and, holding his rifle by the muzzle, he stretched it down the slope, and Fannin quickly passed down. Grasping the rifle above the stock, he reached his gun down nearly to the edge of the slope. Jack quickly scrambled down beside them, and, holding on by Fannin's gun, at last found himself on the edge of the sheer cliff; and looking over, he saw, but a few feet below him, caught in the top of a fir tree that grew in a crevice of the rock, Seammux, looking anxiously up at him. Below him there was a fall of a hundred feet or more, and on the rocks, at the bottom of the cliff, lay the carcase of the goat.
"Hurrah!" said Jack. "Hold on, Seammux, we'll get you up all right!" Then he called back to Hugh and Fannin: "He's caught in a small tree, not more than ten feet below where I am, but I can't reach him. If we get a rope we'll have him out of that in two minutes."
"All right," said Fannin, "that's easily done. Sillicum and I will go back to the camp and fetch the guys on the tent, and any other rope that's there. It's only a little way, and we'll be back in fifteen minutes. What sort of footing have you, Jack?"
"Perfectly good," said Jack; "there's a lot of gravel and broken stone here, on which there is no danger of slipping. I could stay here for a week."
"Well," said Hugh, "make a safe place before you let go Fannin's gun; and then stop there in sight of the Indian. It will make him feel easier, that way."
Jack stamped out a place where he could stand and even sit, and spoke a few words to Seammux, though the latter, of course, did not understand what he was saying.
Fannin called out to the Indian, in a loud voice, telling him that they were going for a rope and would soon have him out of his trouble. Seammux shouted back. Fannin and Sillicum climbed up the steep hill; and, leaving their guns behind them, started on a trot for the camp.
To those who were watching at the edge of the cliff, they seemed gone a long time, but it was really only fifteen or twenty minutes before they came back again, each carrying a coil of rope.
"Good!" said Hugh. "I'm glad you've got back. It seemed a long time to us watching here, and a good deal longer to Seammux. How much rope have you got? Why, that's bully! There's forty feet in one of those coils, and as the rope is a little light, we'll just double it."
He knotted one end of each coil about the little tree, to which he had been holding; and, tossing the other ends to Jack, said: "Now, son, double this rope and then throw it over the Indian, and tell him to put it under his arms. How's the edge of that rock there? Is it sharp and likely to cut the rope, or does the soil and grass overhang it?"