With this determination, they returned to their hut; and at once set about making the torches, and preparing the notched tree for their ladder. There were other little preparations to be made, but most of them were completed before they thought of retiring to rest.
Chapter Fifty Five.
Bear-Hunt by Torch-Light.
As soon as it was daylight again, they went to work once more, and finished their preparations for entering the cave, and at a tolerably early hour they took the route for the ravine.
Two of them carried the improvised ladder; which was only a slender pine-tree, of about forty feet long, notched by the axe, the notches being at intervals of a foot to eighteen inches apart. At its more slender part, there were no notches required, as the natural branches of the tree, lopped into short stumps, were to be used as foot-holds, and would serve the purpose better than any notches.
Forty feet of even the slenderest tree when green would be load sufficient for a couple of stout men. This one was not green; for they had been fortunate enough to find one that had fallen long ago, and that was now quite dead and dry. For all that, it “tied” the united strength of Caspar and Ossaroo to carry it along, for it was they who performed this duty. Karl was loaded with the guns, torches, and the great spear of the shikarree. Fritz carried nothing except his tail; and this he bore aloft in a swaggerish manner, as though he knew that something more than common was designed, and that grand game was to be killed that day.
They moved but slowly; but after about two hours’ walking, including many stoppages and rests, they arrived within the ravine and under the ledge.
It occupied about another hour to erect the ladder. It was placed nearly opposite the mouth of the cave, instead of by the path; for there appeared a favourable crevice in the rocks, which promised to hold it steady, and keep it from turning round; an important consideration with so rude a ladder. The upper end of the tree was laid into the crevice, and fitted exactly. The lower end was rendered firm by something like a cartload of heavy boulders being built around it. It could neither shift nor turn. It was fast as a shut trap. Nothing now remained but to ascend, light the torches, and enter the cave.