"Our meal will run out before long," said the Doctor one night, "but the time is near at hand when we can send a boy down the mountain to bring up a pack mule with some supplies."
"Indeed you can't," said Tom.
"But why not?" asked the Doctor.
"Simply because there are some mountain torrents in the way, that no human being could pass, even if he had one of your big steamships to help him in the crossing."
"But I saw no mountain torrents on our way up," said the Doctor.
"Certainly not," answered Tom, "for they weren't mountain torrents then, but the dry beds of streams. But now it is different. It would be as impossible now for us to 'git down out'n the mountings' as to fly to the moon—unless we went down over the cliffs there, following the chute. And of course we couldn't bring a pack mule up that way. No, we've got to stick it out and live on what we can get till our work is done, and then—as the spring is coming on and the way is blocked by the torrents of which I spoke,—we've got to make our way over the cliffs down there by the chute, for we simply cannot get down the mountain by the way we came."
"How do you know this, Tom?" asked Harry.
"Why, I've tried it. You see any road down the mountain that furnishes an easy way is sure to be crossed by creeks that are dry in the summer and fall, but raging whirlpools when spring melts the snow and sends millions of gallons of water every minute down the steep inclines. I count myself a strong swimmer. But I could no more swim across one of those sluiceways than I could climb up a sunbeam to the rainbow. I tell you we can get nothing from down below now, and I tell you that we can't ourselves go down the mountain by the way by which we came up, for two or three months to come."
"What are we to do, then, Tom?" asked the Doctor.
"Well, first, we're to feed ourselves as best we can till we've finished our work; and then we're to go down the mountain on its steep side along the chute. That will involve a great deal of toil and some danger. We shall have to let ourselves down over cliffs by hanging on to bushes, with the certainty that if the bushes give way we shall be dashed to pieces on the rocks below. But that's the only way we can get down the mountain unless we are willing to wait for summer."