“Yer got ter go over ter east cliff fer vultures,” said Old Buck in answer to Mr. Wilde’s question. “Jes’ foller the trail up around ter the north, then around ag’in ter the sout’east, ’en that’ll fetch yer right along the edge of it—Vulture’s Cliff, they calls it.”
“Nests out along there, I suppose?” Mr. Wilde queried.
“Sech as they is,” said the old scout. “Yer’ll see a clump o’ sticks, looks somethin’ like a bush, them’s the way they looks. Yer got ter look sharp if yer go near ’em.”
“Sweep you right off the ledge, huh?” said Mr. Wilde. Evidently he knew something about these matters.
It seemed to Westy that he had been investigating the habit of vultures. Westy’s thoughts had dwelt mostly on the subject of grizzlies. It was now becoming momentarily evident that Mr. Wilde had a particular enterprise in hand, that for some reason or other he wished to cast one or more of these horrible birds in a startling role. He screwed his cigar over to the opposite corner of his mouth and listened attentively while Old Buck Whitley narrated a ghastly episode which he had once beheld with his own eyes. The three scouts listened spellbound. The reminiscence involved the fate of a man who many years before had ventured out on Vulture Cliff and had actually been driven out to the very edge of the dizzy precipice, outmaneuvered by one of those great birds which he had vainly tried to dodge, and pushed over the edge by a sudden skillful swoop of that monster of the air.
“Jimmie couldn’t even get his hands on him,” said the old guide, “and he couldn’ dodge ’im neither—no, sir. The bird kept in back of him, keepin’ Jimmie between him and the edge, swoopen against him and drivin’ him nearer and nearer till he took a big swoop and came sweepin’ down against him and over he went into the country down yonder. Yer can pick out odds and ends of bones, bleached white, down there now with a spyglass. The bird he went down and finished him like they do.”
“I was wondering if they really do that,” said Mr. Wilde, in a way of business interest. “I was reading about it, but you know these natural history books are cluttered up with all sorts of junk.”
“’Tain’t no junk,” said Buck Whitley. “You folks take my advice and keep away from the edge. Don’t get so far out you can’t ketch hold on a tree or somethin’. They’ll back yer right off jes’ like if they was dancin’ with yer.”
“Pretty neat, huh,” said Mr. Wilde. “That’s the kind of stuff we want. I’m going to get a shot at a scene like that if I can fix it. Novelty, huh?”
Westy, who had listened with rapt attention to this appalling narrative, thought that there might be two opinions about the meaning of the word neat. One thing seemed evident. Mr. Wilde had a rather more adventurous purpose in view than merely the photographing of wild life. He was after thrills. It seemed as if he had dug up somewhere references to the habit and diabolical skill of vultures in procuring the death of their victims.