He even went further and considered the question as to how they
could take him to a doctor; or else force the old hermit of the
Dennison estate to let them carry their injured comrade there.

Not so Frank. He had already made the discovery that the voice came
from up in the air, and hence had quite settled in his mind what had
happened.

"He got up all right, you see, fellows," was the way Frank explained
it to the others, "but it wasn't so easy to creep down again. Perhaps
he dropped the rope he had used, and couldn't clasp the trunk of the
tree because it was so large."

"We'll soon know," ventured Jerry, "because I can see one of the
fish-hawks flying over that tall tree, and I guess the nest must be in
that."

"Here he is over here, you see," observed Frank. "He figured out that
with the sun heading into the west he ought to get on that side of the
nest in order to make a fine picture. So he climbed up and settled
himself, waiting until the mother bird came with a fish for the
fledglings, which may have taken hours."

"I see him!" cried Bluff. "There, he's waving to us now! And I'm glad
to know our chum hasn't gone and broken a leg; for besides the pain to
him it would upset all our fine plans for a good time up here."

Will was sitting astride the lowermost limb of an enormous tree
standing about forty or fifty feet to the west of the one in which the
nest of the ospreys could be plainly seen, close to the top.

Will grinned sheepishly as his chums came underneath. He was some
thirty feet from the ground as his legs dangled over the lowermost
limb. And Frank, remembering his theory, on looking at the base of the
tree discovered that the rope loop did lie there. Will had
inadvertently allowed it to slip from his grasp after reaching the
lower branch and clambering up on to it.

He had removed his shoes and socks in order to make good use of his
toes in climbing, just as do the blacks of the cocoanut islands. But
later on, after getting his long delayed pictures of the old osprey
feeding its fledglings, when the ardent photographer attempted to
descend the big tree he found it an impossible task.

The trunk was far too thick for him to clasp with arms and legs. Will
was not an athlete, though able to climb an ordinary tree if pushed.
He always claimed that he could go up any kind if a bull were after
him; but evidently here was a tree he could not descend, at least.

Just how long he had sat there on tha