In spite of the darkness still clinging to the depths, Gedge began at once searching for a safe place—one where he could crawl to the edge of the gulf, get his face over, and look down; but anywhere near where Bracy had gone down this was in vain, for the snow curved over like some huge volute of glittering whiteness, and several times over, when he ventured, it was to feel that his weight was sufficient to make the snow yield, sending him back with a shudder.
Baffled again and again, he looked to right and left, in search of some slope by whose means he could descend into the gulf; but he looked in vain—everywhere the snow hung over, and as the light increased he saw that the curve was far more than he had imagined.
“Oh, if I only knowed what to do!” he groaned. “I can’t seem to help him; and I can’t leave him to go for help. I must get down somehow; but I dursen’t jump.”
This last thought had hardly crossed his brain when a feeling of wild excitement rushed through him; for faintly heard from far away below, and to his left, there came the shrill chirruping note of an officer’s whistle, and Gedge snatched at the spike of his helmet, plucked it off, and waved it frantically in the air.
“Hoorray!” he yelled. “Hoorray! and I don’t care if any one hears me. Hoorray! He ain’t dead a bit; he’s down somewhere in the soft snow, and hoorray! I’m going to get him out.”
At that moment the whistle chirruped faint and shrill again, the note being repeated from the vast wall.
“He’s this side somewhere,” cried Gedge. “Out o’ sight under this curl-over o’ snow. There he goes again, and I haven’t answered. Of all the—”
The cramming of his fingers into his mouth checked the speech, and, blowing with all his might, the young soldier sent forth a shrill imitation of the officer’s whistle, to echo from the mountain face; and then, unmistakably, and no echo, came another faint, shrill whistle from far to the left.
“All right, Mr Bracy, sir! Hoorray! and good luck to you! I’m a-coming.”
He whistled again, and went off in the direction from which his summons seemed to have come, and again he was answered, and again and again, till, quite a quarter of a mile along the edge, the young soldier stopped, for the whistles had sounded nearer and nearer, till he felt convinced that he had reached a spot on the snow hanging just above his summoner’s head.