Chapter XXI: Despair

Somewhere not far off was the sound of falling water and ten or fifteen minutes more of difficult progress brought us to a long, narrow cleft crossing our line of travel. Into this tumbled a rushing brook which wriggled down in its boisterous course from high up the mountain. I thought that Tom might have heard this falling water from a long distance and come thither intending to follow the course of the brook. We wondered how he had crossed the cleft, for as far as we could see, it did not seem to narrow in either direction. Brent walked on ahead a little way.

“We might as well see how far this cleft goes,” he called.

“You’re right,” I said. “There might be a turn we can’t see from here.”

“We can only try. If there’s a place one can cross, Tom has found _that place_.”

“I dare say,” I said, greatly admiring Brent’s implicit faith in Tom’s judgment.

We walked along then in silence, the stillness being broken only by the occasional crackle of dried twigs underfoot and the now distant sound of the turbulent little brook swishing down the mountain side.

“Bad turn ahead,” Brent called to me, “Keep in line!” As usual I had been lagging in the rear, but on hearing this, increased my speed and caught up to him at the turn.

Some distance beyond, the cleft stopped abruptly. Even our own trackless path ahead, narrowed out before our eyes and ended against another towering wall of frowning stone rising out of a deep gully.

“Well this is once we’ll stand with our backs to the wall,” Brent said, with a mixture of humor and despair.

“It looks that way, certainly,” I replied, feeling only the despair and none of the humor.

We were glancing around rather hopelessly for some sign that Tom might have made in his search. So far, there had been no telltale signs of any human being, but here and there we noticed broken down wild growths where some heavy footed night prowler had recently passed.

It must have been well on toward seven o’clock and the sun had not shown any more than a faint line of sickly pinkish hue in the East. The skies too, looked threatening and overcast. Clouds of ashen gray roofed the summit of old Hogback and the ragged outer edges, like some weatherbeaten circus top, seemed to lap over all the rest of the world.

The silence was rather depressing. The misty chill of that dark morning had gotten into my system. Brent too, I noticed, had become unusually quiet.

“Hadn’t we better find our way back again before this deluge traps us?” I asked.

“I guess so,” Brent replied. He sauntered over toward the indomitable looking wall of stone that shut off our progress in that direction.

“At least we _can_ go back,” I called to him and wishing he would give up the idea of trying to cross over the cleft.

I stood there thinking how helpless mere Man really is in the face of Nature. Why even that noisy brook whistling over the stones in the gully was not daunted by that high mountain wall. It was tirelessly finding its way until it finally rushed out and over the jagged rocks and thence down into the foothills, white-foamed and free. My reverie was interrupted by the sound of Brent’s voice.

“See what we have here! Looks like an old Roman bridge, doesn’t it?”

Not being able to see from where I stood, I moved towards Brent and saw that the high wall had one really fine advantage. It had undoubtedly taken ages to form, but there it surely was, a natural narrow bridge of fallen rock. Hardly more than a ledge and too narrow to walk it; one would have to crawl on hands and knees.

Besides, there was a jump of about eight or nine feet on the opposite side before one could skirt the ravine and land safely. Beyond that, we could see the thick woodland declining in the direction of camp. I mentioned this to Brent.

“I know,” he said, “but all this doesn’t give us the slightest idea as to where Tommy’s spent the night and where he is now.”

“I realize that, Brent,” I said. “Still I feel quite confident that Tom is safe and knows what he’s doing. We’ll probably find him at camp when we get there.” Perhaps I felt suddenly buoyed up at the sight of the firm rocks ready to give us safe passage over the gully. I only know that I wanted to get out of the deepening gloom of the mountains as quickly as possible.

“If he’s not there, maybe Rivers will be able to suggest something,” Brent ventured to say.

“He’s probably there,” I said, and feeling that my words had sounded rather half-hearted.

Brent started for the narrow ledge and I followed slowly, so as to keep a safe distance between us. Neither spoke until we were safe on firm ground again.

I laughed nervously as I scooped and brushed the oozy green scum from my clothes. The stuff was thick all along the ledge. Brent did the same. And we both realized it had been a risky jump across that yawning chasm.

In a self-congratulatory mood for our good fortune, we moved simultaneously toward the edge of the precipice and looked over. Almost instantly Brent gave my arm a painful jerk and drew back.

“Heavens!” he cried, hoarsely. “Look what’s down there!” His head was turned toward mine but his hand was outstretched and I followed the line of his pointed finger.

Down in the gully, lying face downward and partly immersed in the swift mountain brook was the form of a man.