"Thank you, comrades!" That was all that Jack could say before the strain upon him overcame even his iron nerves, and for a moment he lost consciousness. It was only for a moment, however. At the end of that time Jack led the way over the cliff, five torches lighting the journey. Presently daylight came, and the torches were thrown away.
The trail that Tom had made of broken bushes, cliff growing saplings, bent down in letting himself drop over bluffs and declivities, and boot marks where he had scrambled over a ledge, was not very difficult to follow for a space. But then came a long stretch of shelving rock entirely bare, with a dense forest growth beyond, where the leaves that had fallen in the autumn were still a foot deep, and beyond that point it was impossible to trace Tom's course. After earnest endeavors to recover the trail, the effort was abandoned, and sadly the little company made their way back to camp by a circuitous route, for they could not climb again the cliffs over which they had managed to clamber down.
On the way back they were encouraged by the hope that they might find Tom in the camp, when they got there, but in this they were disappointed.
They were all disposed to sit down and mourn dejectedly, but at that point the Doctor's scientific knowledge came to the rescue.
"See here, boys," he said; "we've got some strenuous work to do for Tom's rescue, and we must do some clear and earnest thinking before we begin it, in order that we may do it in the best way. We're exhausted. We have passed a night with only two hours or less of sleep, and we've eaten nothing for fifteen hours, for it's now after nine o'clock. In the meantime we have made a tiresome journey down the mountain and back again and worse still—for worry is always more wearing than work—we have undergone a great stress of anxiety. Now we're going to do all that human endeavor can do to rescue Tom. To that end we must have strength in our bodies and alertness in our minds. We must have breakfast at once and a hearty breakfast at that."
None of the boys had an appetite, but the Doctor insisted and presently there was a breakfast served, consisting of bacon, cut into paper-thin slices and broiled on the sharpened point of a stick, held in a blaze from the fire; corn pones baked to a crisp brown in a skillet, and a brimming pot of hot and strong coffee. For butter on their bread, the boys had a mixture of the drippings from their recent roasts—the venison, the wild boar, the rabbits and the rest—all of which drippings they had carefully saved for that purpose.
Appetizing as such a breakfast was to hardworking, sleep-losing and exhausted boys, not one of them felt the least relish for it. It required all of the Doctor's urging to make them even taste their food, till presently Harry, who stood outside as a sentinel, threw down his gun and started away at a break-neck pace, calling out at the top of his voice as he went:
"There's Tom! There's Tom! There's Tom, and he's all right!"
With that the whole company abandoned breakfast and rushed out to greet the returning boy. They plied and bombarded him with questions, of course, until at last he said pleadingly:
"Please, boys, I'm awfully hungry and tired. I'll answer all your questions after awhile. Just now the only things you really want to know are that I'm back safe and sound, and that nothing worse has happened to me than the loss of a night's sleep, a good deal of anxiety about you fellows, and the getting up of a positively famished appetite. I say," he added, as he entered the cabin, "who broiled that bacon?" and as he asked the question he picked up two or three slices of it and thrust them one after another into his mouth.