pite of the birds, my heart misgave me.

There, on a ledge deep below, he lay in a mass, half raised on one arm.
But not dead, I believed. 'Harold!' I cried. 'Harold!'

He turned his face up and saw me; his eyes lighted with joy. He shouted
back something, but I could not hear it.

I turned to Elsie. 'I must go down to him!'

Her tears rose again. 'Oh, Brownie!'

I unwound the coil of rope. The first thing was to fasten it. I could
not trust Elsie to hold it; she was too weak and too frightened to bear
my weight: even if I wound it round her body, I feared my mere mass
might drag her over. I peered about at the surroundings. No tree grew
near; no rock had a pinnacle sufficiently safe to depend upon. But I
found a plan soon. In the crag behind me was a cleft, narrowing
wedge-shape as it descended. I tied the end of the rope round a stone,
a good big water-worn stone, rudely girdled with a groove near the
middle, which prevented it from slipping; then I dropped it down the
fissure till it jammed; after which, I tried it to see if it would bear.
It was firm as the rock itself. I let the rope down by it, and waited a
moment to discover whether Harold could climb. He shook his head, and
took a notebook with evident pain from his pocket. Then he scribbled a
few words, and pinned them to the rope. I hauled it up. 'Can't move.
Either severely bruised and sprained, or else legs broken.'

There was no help for it, then. I must go to him.

My first idea was merely to glide down the rope with my gloved hands,
for I chanced to have my dog-skin bicycling gloves in my pocket.
Fortunately, however, I did not carry out this crude idea too hastily;
for next instant it occurred to me that I could not swarm up again. I
have had no practice in rope-climbing. Here was a problem. But the
moment suggested its own solution. I began making knots, or rather
nooses or loops, in the rope, at intervals of about eighteen inches.
'What are they for?' Elsie asked, looking on in wonder.

'Footholds, to climb up by.'

'But the ones above will pull out with your weight.'

'I don't think so. Still, to make sure, I shall tie them with this
string. I _must_ get down to him.'

I threaded a sufficient number of loops, trying the length over the
edge. Then I said to Elsie, who sat cowering, propped against the crag,
'You must come and look over, and do as I wave to you. Mind, dear, you
_must_! Two lives depend upon it.'

'Brownie, I daren't? I sha