“But how?” I couldn’t seem to grasp the meaning of it all. It seemed inconceivable for Tom to come to such an end. “Why, he’s too cautious to have made such a ghastly error!” I cried.
I couldn’t and I wouldn’t believe that that was Tom!
“Who else would it be?” Brent’s broken tones sounded hopelessly positive, somehow. “He’s tried to find his way through here in the early dawn probably. He couldn’t have seen what a gap it was!”
“No, of course not!” I agreed, mechanically. “We must hurry back to camp. Get some help. The storm’s almost upon us.”
“Oh, yes! The storm. I had almost forgotten it,” Brent murmured, as though the storm and all else now meant nothing. “We’ll get some rope. He can’t lie there for long. He’s dead, of course!”
“Of course!”
We ran when we could and walked as fast as the thick brambles permitted. Where it was less thickly wooded, I could get a slight view of the camp through the trees. It looked like a speck of black on the horizon. We still had some distance to go.
The heavens were rumbling angrily and yet we had not sighted a place where we could find foothold enough to make a descent to the slope below us. Fully a half hour had passed and the rain was pelting us in huge drops before we found some jagged indentations running down to the first slope.
With hands and faces scratched and bleeding, our clothing torn and wet we finally reached the lower edge. Whether to follow along the base toward camp or strike out for the table-land was the question uppermost in our minds.
Which way would enable us to get there quickly? Brent took my arm in his and made a flourish with his free hand to the southeast.