“Yes, the poor fellow must have fallen over here, and been hurt so badly that he wasn’t able to get up again,” Hugh announced, and then crawling forward to the verge of the precipice he took an observation.
“See him, Hugh?” questioned Billy.
“Yes, he’s down there in a heap,” came the reply. “Looks as if he might have tried again and again to work his way up, and had to quit through weakness. Come on, let’s work our way around, boys. I think there must be some easier path down there than the one he took.”
“Gee whiz! I should hope so!” muttered Billy, who had also ventured to take a peep over the edge, though without seeing the fallen master of the bear.
They skirted the precipice and as Hugh had predicted, soon discovered that it was possible to make the descent by means of a shelving path, which doubtless the wretched man had not found out. Presently they had reached the place where he lay.
He was looking terribly gaunt and haggard, more from the result of his intense pain and anxiety than because he had been imprisoned so long in that trap. When the trio of scouts came upon him, the man’s face lighted up with new hope. He held out his hands eagerly toward them, bursting into a torrent of words, most of which they failed to understand because they may have been Russian, and like so much gibberish in their ears.
If the poor fellow was in any doubt as to their pacific and kindly intentions, the reassuring smiles on the faces of the scouts must have soon allayed his fears.
Hugh tried to tell him that they had found his bear, and followed his trail all the way along the side of old Stormberg Mountain to this place where he had met with his accident. He also gave the man to understand that they would stay by, and get him to a place of safety.
First of all the young scout master started to make an examination so that he might understand the extent of the man’s injuries.
“Isn’t it queer how history likes to repeat itself?” remarked Billy while he and the third chum stood there watching Hugh go through with this examination. “Just the other day it seems we saw our leader look over another party who had met with an accident, only in his case it was a fractured arm and not his leg.”