A faint shout answered him, and Jimmy made his way downwards until he could discern a dusky blur, which he surmised was Brooke, close beneath him. Taking a firm hold with one hand, he leaned down and clutched at it, and then, with every muscle strained, strove to drag his comrade up. Jimmy was a strong man, but Brooke, it seemed, was able to do very little to help him, and Jimmy's fingers commenced to slacken under the tension. Then Brooke, who made a convulsive flounder, lost the grip he had, and the arm Jimmy clung to was torn away from him. A dull sound that was unpleasantly suggestive rose from a ledge below, and there was silence that was more so after it.
Then while Jimmy leaned down, blinking into the darkness and ignoring the risk he ran, a yellow flash leapt out below, and there was a stunning detonation. It was followed almost in the same moment by another, and the solid rock seemed to heave a shiver, while the hollow was filled with overwhelming sound and a nauseating vapor. Giant-powder strikes chiefly downwards, which was especially fortunate for two men just then, but the rock was swept by flying fragments of shattered trunks, and Jimmy cowered against it half-dazed. Then another sound rose out of the acrid haze as the rent trunks crushed beneath the pressure, and there was an appalling grinding and smashing of timber. It was succeeded by a furious roar of water.
A minute had probably slipped by when once more a man who showed faintly black against the firelight leaned over the edge of the gully, and his voice reached Jimmy brokenly.
"Hallo! Are either of you alive?" he cried.
Jimmy roused himself with an effort. "Well," he said, hoarsely, "I guess I am. I don't quite know whether Brooke is."
"Then I'm coming down," said the other man. "We have got to get him out of the stink if there's anything left of him."
Jimmy grasped the necessity for this, since the fumes of giant-powder are in confined spaces usually sufficient to prostrate a strong man, and several of his comrades apparently came down instead of one, bringing lanterns and blazing brands with them. There was a slippery ledge a little lower down the gully, and while the nauseating vapor eddied about them and the shattered wreckage went thundering past below, they made their way along it until they came on Brooke.
He was lying partly up on the ledge with his feet in the swirling torrent and his shirt rent open. There was a big red smear on it, his lips were bloodless, and one arm was doubled limply under him. Jimmy stooped and shook him gently, but Brooke made no sign, and his head sank forward until his face was hidden. Then Jimmy, who slipped his hand inside the torn shirt, withdrew it, smeared and warm, with a little shiver.
"He's bleeding quite hard, and that shows there's life in him. We have got to get him out of this right now," he said.
None of them quite remembered how they did it, for few men unaccustomed to the ranges would have cared to ascend that gully unencumbered by daylight, but it was accomplished, and when a litter of fir branches had been hastily lashed together they plodded behind it in silence down the hillside. If anything could be done, and they were very uncertain on that point, it could only be done in the shanty.