“What’s that he’s shouting?” asked Walt. “Hark!”
“Boys! boys! I’ve found him—Jack!”
This was the cry that galvanized them all into action. Without seeking for explanations, in fact, without a word, they spurred toward the professor’s side. They found him peering down into the fissure, the edge of which was concealed by grass and ferns. Craning their necks, they, too, could spy a figure in the depths of the crevasse.
“Jack! Jack, old boy! Are you all right?” they cried anxiously.
“Bright and fair!” came up the cheery answer, “but almost dead. I thought you’d never come. Got anything to eat?”
“Anything your little heart desires,” Walt assured him.
In the meantime Pete had been busy getting a lariat in trim to lower to the beleaguered boy. Presently it was ready, and after much hauling and struggling, they got their companion once more to the surface. Jack reeled for an instant as he gained the brink, but Ralph’s arms caught him. The next minute he had recovered his self-possession, however, and after eating ravenously of such provisions as could be got together hastily, he related the story of the strange things that had happened to him since leaving camp that morning.
“If I hadn’t thought of those matches in my pocket and of igniting a fire of that dried grass, I doubt if I’d have been here now,” he concluded.
“I think you are right,” said the professor gravely, “I am glad that that fire at least was not extinct.”