Of course the greatest excitement followed this announcement on the part of the old trapper.
Steve darted this way and that, fairly wild to do something; and Bandy-legs, too, showed himself anxious to help. But, as usual, it was cool Max, assisted by Owen, who managed to light the two lanterns.
Steve pounced on the first one that was ready, true to his word.
"Come on, you slow pokes!" he exclaimed, making for the door; "why, our poor chum might be drowning for all we know, and us wasting time here."
"Oh, I reckon it ain't so bad as that," remarked Trapper Jim. "Hard to drown a tall boy in a three-foot deep crick. Besides, he's up the wind from here, while the water lies the other way. That's one reason none of us heard him before."
They were all hurrying along by now. Bandy-legs, being a little timid, and not altogether liking the looks of the dark woods, had picked up the gun belonging to Max.
"My goodness!" he called out after the others, being in the rear of the little procession, "there's no telling how long poor old Toby might 'a' been letting out his whoops, and with that door shut we didn't hear him."
"Well, we can right now, all right!" called back Steve, who was running neck and neck with the trapper, swinging his lighted lantern in such a reckless, haphazard fashion that he was in momentary danger of smashing the useful article against some tree.
They could all hear Toby calling very clearly now.
"Help! Oh, h-h-help!"
"One thing sure," Max remarked; "Toby hasn't tumbled down into a hollow tree stump! His yells sound too plain for that."
"Oh, shucks; forget it!" said Bandy-legs.
Some time before, while the boys were hunting for Bandy-legs, who had become lost in a large swamp not twenty miles away from Carson, they had finally found him, caged fast inside a large hollow stump. He had climbed to the top of this to take an observation, when the rotten wood, giving way, had allowed him to fall inside.
It had been a bitter experience for Bandy-legs, and his chums never mentioned it without him shivering, as memory again carried him back to the hours of suffering he had spent in his woody prison.
As they advanced the cries grew louder:
"H-h-help! Boys, oh, b-b-boys, come q-q-quick! I can't h-h-hold on much longer!"
"Say, he must be away up in a tree!" exclaimed Steve.
"No, his voice sounds closer to the ground than that," declared Max.
"Tell you what," panted Bandy-legs from behind, "he's just gone and fell over some old cliff, that's what. You know how clumsy Toby is."
That sounded rather queer, since it was the speaker himself who had always been getting into scrapes because of this trait.
"Cliff!" snorted Steve, "like to know how anybody could ever fall up a cliff. You mean a precipice, silly."
"Guess I do," admitted Bandy-legs, "but it's all the same. If you're on top it's a precipice, and if you're down below—"
"Listen to him holler, would you?" interrupted Steve. "Hold on, Toby, we're coming as fast as we c'n sprint! Keep up a little longer! It's all right! Your pards are on the job!"
Max thought he saw Trapper Jim laughing about this time. From this he imagined the other must have guessed the true state of affairs, and that poor Toby could not be in such desperate straits as they believed.
The darkness was intense there under the trees.
Several times did impulsive Steve stumble over obstacles which in his eagerness he had failed to notice.
Trapper Jim was doubtless sizing the various boys up by degrees, and long before now he had read most of their leading characteristics. But anyone would be able to know the headstrong nature of Steve Dowdy, after being in his company for an hour.
"Where are you, Toby, old fellow?" called Steve.
"H-h-here! L-l-lookout, or you'll f-f-fall over, too," came weakly from a point just ahead of them.
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" shouted Bandy-legs. "It is a precipice after all, and p'r'aps an awful high one! Hold on, Toby, don't you dare let loose when we're right at hand."
Max had felt a thrill again at the prospect of such a peril threatening Toby. But another look at Trapper Jim reassured him.
"Yes," said Jim, "be mighty careful how you step, boys. Get down on your hands and knees and creep up here to the edge of the awful chasm. Now, hold the lanterns down, so we can all of us see."
Cautiously did the alarmed Steve do as he was told. Four pairs of eager eyes took in the situation. Amazement staggered the boys for the space of ten seconds. Then they burst out into loud laughter.
And no wonder.
Toby was hanging there all right, red of face from his long-continued exertion, and looking appealingly up to his chums. He had caught hold of a friendly stout root as he found himself going over, and to this he clung, digging his toes from time to time into the face of the "precipice," and in this way managing to sustain himself, though almost completely exhausted by the alarm and strain combined.
"Ain't you g-g-goin' to h-h-help me?" he gasped, amazed no doubt to hear his heartless chums laughing at his misfortune.
"Let go, Toby!" cried Max.
"Yes, drop down and take a rest!" added Steve, who could enjoy a joke to the utmost when it was on Toby, with whom he often had words; though all the same they were quite fond of each other.
"W-w-want me to get s-s-smashed, d-d-don't you?" answered back the indignant boy, as he continued to clutch that root, as though he believed it to be the only thing between himself and destruction.
"Look down, you loon!" cried Steve. "Call that a big drop? Why, I declare the ground ain't more'n six inches down below your feet! Shucks; did I ever hear the like!"
Toby did twist his neck the best he could and look. Then with a glad cry he released his hold on the friendly root to fall in a heap.
"Let's get down to him," said Trapper Jim, "he must be pretty well used up, I reckon. Perhaps he's been hangin' thar half an hour'n more."
"But whatever made him do such a silly thing?" asked Steve, as they proceeded to go around the edge of the little "sink," led by the trapper, who knew every foot of ground.
"Well, I don't know that it was so queer after all," declared Jim; "you see, when he fell over here in the dark, how was Toby to know whether he was hanging over a precipice ten feet deep or a hundred? All he could do was to keep hold of that root and holler for help."
"And he did that to beat the band," declared Owen.
"I guess it was all real to him," the trapper went on to say; "and chances are, when he heard the trickling of this little brook that runs through the sink here, he thought it was a river away below him. Oh, I can feel for Toby all right. I once had an experience myself something like his. But here we are down. How're you feeling, son?"
"P-p-pretty r-r-rocky," declared Toby, who was sitting up when they reached him, and seemed to be trembling all over, as the result of the nervous strain to which he had been subjected.
"Don't blame you a bit," declared Max, who saw that the poor chap had in truth suffered considerably. "Lots of fellows would have thought the same as you did, Toby. I might myself, if I'd slipped down that way in the dark. Here, grab hold with me, Steve, and we'll help Toby home."
"Anyhow," admitted Toby, as they put their arms about him, "I'm g-g-glad you did c-c-come. R-r-reckon I'd f-f-fainted if I just had to let g-g-go."
"Rats! I don't believe it," scoffed the unbelieving Steve.
Once they reached the trapper's cabin, and came under the cheerful influence of that crackling fire, even Toby's spirits rose again. He had by this time recovered some of his usual grit, and could afford to laugh with the rest at his recent experience.
It was about as Trapper Jim suspected.
Toby had been tempted to follow the lame rabbit for some little distance into the woods. Finally, finding that he had gone pretty far, and with night closing in rapidly all around him, the boy had started to return.
Becoming a little confused, he had stumbled one way and another, and in the end fallen over the edge of the shallow sink.
Throwing out his hands even as he felt himself falling, he had caught hold of the projecting root. Here he had hung, trying again and again to climb up, but in vain; and quite sure that a terrible void lay beyond his dangling legs.
At first Toby had been too alarmed to even think of calling for help. But as time went by, and he realized the desperate nature of his predicament, he tried to shout.
This was never an easy task to the stuttering boy, and doubtless he made a sorry mess out of it.
But all's well that ends well. Toby had been gallantly rescued, and now the five chums were doing their level best to assist Trapper Jim prepare supper.
Would they ever forget the delights of that first meal under the roof of the forest cabin? Often had they partaken of a camp dinner, but never before had it seemed to have the same flavor as this one did, surrounded as they were with those bunches of suggestive steel traps, the furs that told of Jim's prowess in other days, and above all having the presence of the grizzled trapper himself, a veritable storehouse of wonderful information and thrilling experiences.
And after the meal was finished they made themselves as comfortable as each could arrange it, using all Jim's furs in the bargain.
"Now, let's lay out the programme for to-morrow," suggested Max.
"Me to try for the first deer," spoke up Steve, quickly. "Squirrel stew, like we had for supper to-night, is all very well, but it ain't in the same class with fresh venison. Yum, yum, my mouth fairly waters for it, boys!"
"Some like venison and some say gray nut-fed squirrels," remarked Trapper Jim. "As for me, give me squirrel every time."
"But we ought to try and get one deer anyway, hadn't we?" Steve pleaded.
"Sure we will," replied the owner of the cabin, heartily, "and I hope it falls to your gun, Steve, seeing you dote on venison so. But it might be to-morrow I'd like to set a few of my traps, and reckoned that some of you boys'd want to watch me do the job."
"That's right," cried Owen and Max together, their eyes fairly sparkling with delight at the anticipated treat.
So they talked on, and Trapper Jim told lots of mighty interesting things as he smoked his old black pipe and sent curling wreaths of blue smoke up the broad throat of the chimney.
"Wonder if the moon ain't up long before now?" remarked Steve, finally.
"Go and find out," suggested Bandy-legs.
Whereupon Steve arose, stretched his cramped legs, and, going over to the door, opened it. They saw him pass out, and as the trapper had started to relate another of his deeply interesting experiences the boys devoted their attention to him. But it was not three minutes later when Steve came rushing into the cabin, his eyes filled with excitement, and his voice raised to almost a shout as he cried out:
"Wolves; a whole pack of 'em comin' tearin' mad this way!"
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