“We’ve got to go down and get him,” said Westy, asserting himself. “You can’t see either Mr. Wilde or Billy and you can’t make them hear us. There’s no time to waste hunting them up first to help us. I’m going right down now on a chance I might get to him in time.”
“One of us ought to get a doctor,” Ed suggested.
“How?” put in Westy.
“Well, don’t you remember they had a telephone at the Hermitage? We could phone into Yellowstone for a doctor from there.”
“Good idea. You thought of it, so you go there and I’ll climb down after Warde. There’s no time to waste, so hurry.”
“Oh, I’ll hurry. Here, keep these matches and make a signal fire to guide us to you if you can’t get out of there by night.”
So saying, the boys separated, Westy preparing to descend the dangerous slope, and Ed daring the obscure trail to circle the mountain to Hermitage Rest.
The sun, still bright on the mountain tops, had already left the valleys in a sinister twilight as the boys parted.
CHAPTER XXXVII
ED CARLYLE, SCOUT
Ed lost no time in making most of the daylight still remaining to get a good start around the mountain toward Hermitage Rest. For a time this was easy, as the setting sun gave an easy guide to the points of the compass, but before he had gone far down the slope the sun had dropped out of sight behind a mountain top, and as there was only the vaguest trail in these wild parts, Ed soon realized it would take all his scout knowledge to find his way at all. He crashed along through the undergrowth often scaring up wild rabbits and other small animals which on another occasion he would have delighted to stalk, but now his heart was so heavy he hardly noticed them as he hastened on.