At this prospect Westy brightened and helped gather up their tackle which Ed opined was “some improvement on that historic safety pin.” Warde, however, refused to go along.
“I’m not going,” he said. “I turned my ankle on a loose rock last night anyway and it hurts. You catch the fish and I’ll cook them—that’s fair. I’m going to write a letter home. I don’t know when I’ll mail it, but I’ll get it written anyway.”
“’Tain’t your ankle, it’s your feelings that hurt,” said Ed, astutely. “But do as you like, here’s where Kit Carson and Dan’l Boone leave you. S’long,” and Westy and Ed disappeared through the woods toward the sound of a boisterous mountain stream, leaving Warde behind. How little they knew what was to happen before they were all together again!
CHAPTER XXXVI
OFF THE CLIFF
It was late in the afternoon when Ed and Westy who had been working their way upstream all day awarded with a goodly string of gleaming trout, found themselves on a high and rocky point from which Vulture Cliff was plainly visible. In the clear mountain air it seemed as if they might almost touch it.
Tired from their scrambles and satisfied with their catch, the boys stretched out on the rocks and gazed up at the cliff. They were separated from it by a narrow gulch of such dizzy depths that Ed said it made him seasick to look down.
“Don’t look down, then, look up,” said Westy. “You can see the vultures from here.”
“Gee, so you can. Don’t they look like airplanes? I wonder how big they are?”
“Well,” said Westy, “that guide at the Hermitage said he killed one once that measured over eight feet from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other, spread out. Of course he didn’t kill that one on this reservation, but I bet these are just as big.”
“I bet they are, and my goodness look what a lot of them there are. They must scent something dead over there,” cried Ed in excitement.