“Well! I’ve seen chamois in the Alps, but I never saw anything like that!” the doctor cried. “The cool nerve of that lamb! Why, they go right off into space, and their eyes are so accurate and their feet so quick that they kick themselves six feet to one side in falling twenty, and land safely on a shelf not big enough for a boy to stand on!”
The two climbed back up the rope to Mills.
“Get a good show?” he asked.
“That was the most interesting and thrilling exhibition of animal strength and skill I ever witnessed,” Dr. Kent answered. “And what a handsome creature the old ram is, with those great, curving horns! Why, a monkey in a tree isn’t so active and daring! Besides, the monkey has branches to fall into, and the sheep have only space, with sure death below. Aren’t they ever killed? Don’t they ever miss?”
“Oh, yes,” said the Ranger. “But in all the years I used to hunt ’em, I never saw one miss badly enough to be killed on a cliff he knew. It’s when they get surprised and have to jump on a strange wall, maybe on the way to some new feeding ground, that they hit an impossible dive. On their regular beats, they seem to know every foot of the rocks. Sometimes the snowslides catch ’em in winter, though.”
They were walking back, or, rather, scrambling back, toward the point where their chimney came up, as Mills talked. It was getting along in the afternoon now, the tourist party was leaving Iceberg Lake and winding down the trail like ants, and the three, without further delay, prepared to descend.
And now, for the first time, Tom learned the use of the doubled rope, in the descent. The doctor’s rope, which had seemed clumsily long to him on the way up—a hundred feet for only three men—now was not long enough! They did not fasten themselves to it at all, except on the dangerous transverses. Instead, they hung it at the centre around some firm rock, dropped the two ends down the cliff, and then, grasping both strands, slid down them to the farthest ledge below which they could reach. That meant a possible slide of fifty feet, of course, with a hundred foot rope. Then, when all three were at the bottom, all they had to do was to pull on one strand, and the other side would go up till the end was freed from the rock above and came tumbling down. By this method they could take straight drops down the very steepest places, when, on the ascent, they had been obliged to work in the gully, with falling rocks threatening them. It amounted to descending by fifty foot jumps, and as soon as Tom learned to keep both strands of the rope equally firm in his hands so that there was no play whatever, he felt quite confident.
Of course, to let go of either strand while you are descending the doubled rope means that all your weight comes on one side, the top will slip, and down you will go. To avoid that, either Mills or the doctor came last for several hundred feet, keeping a hand on the rope while Tom slid down. But they soon saw he had the hang of it, and let him go first, or last, or in the middle, as it chanced, without any more worry.
By this method, their descent was rapid. Of course, it took time, for they had a long way to go, and you never hurry on a dangerous cliff. You go cautiously, deliberately, and sometimes you have to hunt three or four minutes to find a strong enough hold for the rope. But it was much faster than the ascent, and even though Tom’s hands were soon red and burning from sliding down the rope, for he had no leather gloves, he enjoyed this new sport more than anything he had ever done.
They reached the top of the shale pile at last, at half-past six, having kept to the goat trail all the way down, out of the gully. They coiled up the rope, and went lunging down over the loose shale and then through the scrub trees and bushes, to the brook which flowed out to the lake. Here, as if on a signal, all three of them dropped on their knees on the stones, buried their faces in the ice water, and drank, and drank, and drank.