Then Jack's feet, which had been resting on an insecure footing of loose stones, shot from under him. He clung to his shrub and held his position, but in the effort he dislodged a small boulder, which went crashing down, dislodging earth and the accumulations of broken rock in its course. He had started a little avalanche; and the most he could do was to cry a horrified warning and watch it go rolling down, growing greater as it went.
"Tom!" he called. "Oh, Tom!"
This time there was no answer. Dead silence followed the frantic call and the plunge of the avalanche into the water. What had become of Tom? Billy Topsail, who had found shelter in the "lee" of the boulder upon which he had been sitting, suggested, when Jack joined him, that Tom had been swept into the water by the flood of stones and earth. Jack scouted the suggestion. Had he not watched the course of that selfsame flood? Tom had been on the ledge. He must still be there—unconscious, probably, and unable to answer to the call of his name.
"We'll look there first, at any rate," he determined.
A great part of the avalanche had lodged on the ledge. Stones and moss and new earth lay in slanting heaps in many places; but of Tom's body there was no sign.
"He've been swep' into the water, I fears," Billy declared.
"Or buried on the ledge," said Jack.
Jack called to his friend again. While they listened, straining their ears for the remotest response, he had his eye fixed on a remnant of the avalanche near by. To his unbounded astonishment, he perceived evidences of some disturbance within the heap. The disturbance suddenly developed into an upheaval. A foot and an ankle shot out. A moment later Billy Topsail had that foot and its mate in his hands and was hauling with small regard for the body behind.
It was Tom.