Frank Merriwell's Champions: or, All in the Game. Standish Burt L.
out that you don’t get bitten,” shouted Rattleton, with a laugh. “Those are wild hogs, you must understand, and you’d better not crowd them.”
The hogs looked fierce enough to justify Rattleton’s assertion.
“A boar hunt in these hills wouldn’t be bad,” said Hodge. “One of those fellows had tusks like razors.”
They soon found abundant use for the rope, of which Nell Thornton had spoken, and for the stout alpinstocks they had provided as well. The way was rough and steep, and they quickly came to a series of benches, where the rope was found invaluable.
“This is what I call tough,” grunted Browning, mopping his heated face at the end of one of these climbs.
“Cyant hab no chillins, an’ fevah, dough, Mistah Browning, when you sweat dat way,” laughed Toots. “Dis clamb is gwan ter cure yeh.”
“Or kill me!” Bruce growled.
“I wonder how these other fellows are getting on?” said Hodge.
“I don’t doubt they’re going faster than we are,” answered Merriwell. “But I’m depending on the judgment of that girl, and you know that we have the best of authority for believing that the race is not always to the swift.”
“Or the battle to the strong!” chimed in Diamond, completing the quotation.
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Rattleton.
“Mr. Rattleton, what are you grinning about now?” queried Hodge.
“I was just thinking that if the battle were always to the strong, what a fight a polecat would put up!” answered Rattleton, with another shout.
“I believe, by chaowder, they air the strongest things on earth,” declared the boy from Vermont, with a smile. “I tried to poke one out of dad’s old barn once, an’ I thought it would lift the roof, b’gosh!”
Higher and higher the dim path led, zigzagging at times, crossing perilous crevices, which they were forced to leap, dipping into narrow gorges, through which ran icy streams of water from hidden springs.
“I tell you we’re nearing the top!” cried Rattleton, with a burst of enthusiasm.
Merriwell looked at his watch.
“We’ve already been an hour on the way,” he declared. “That starter thought the climb could be made in two hours. We may have to cross that rocky shoulder yet.”
“No, we shall not have to cross it,” said Hodge. “I caught a view of the path from that other slope a while ago, and it swings under the point instead of over it.”
“Hello! I don’t know about this!” cried Merriwell, coming to a full stop at another bend.
The path ended at the foot of a flat rock that rose upward like the wall.
“We’ve got to get up there somehow,” asserted Diamond. “The path will be found again at the top.”
Browning stepped forward.
“There’s only one way, fellows. I understand now just what Nell meant when she said we’d have to help each other. Climb up on my shoulders here, Gallup. You’re the longest and can reach that notch with your hands. Perhaps Hans had better go next.”
“By gum! he ain’t here!” snorted Gallup, staring around.
“He must have got tired and stopped,” said Merriwell. “We can’t wait for him. We may lose the race if we do. And it will punish him right, when he comes to this place and finds he can’t get up.”
“We’ll come back and lower the rope for him,” said Browning, putting himself in position against the wall of rock. “As Merriwell says, we haven’t any time to lose.”
Gallup glanced quizzically upward, then gave his hand to Merriwell, and was assisted to Browning’s broad shoulders.
“No fooling,” grunted Browning. “If I’ve got to play the strong man in this game of high and lofty tumbling, I want you fellows to get a move on you. Gallup alone feels as if he weighs a ton.”
Barney climbed to Gallup’s shoulders, and Merriwell came next, carrying the rope.
Standing on Barney’s shoulders, he was able to grasp the branches of a tree that hung down at that point, and scrambled quickly on to the top of the bluff.
“Yes, the path is up here,” he shouted back, letting down an end of the rope. “Put that loop around your waist, Diamond, and I’ll pull as you climb. You’ll find it will be a good deal easier.”
“You’d better hurry on without me,” advised Browning, when all were at the top but himself. “You’ll lose valuable time trying to get me up there, and it’s not necessary.”
“We’ll have you up in just a moment,” promised Merriwell. “Take a seat in that loop. You won’t need to do much, only keep yourself from scratching scales off the rock. There’s enough of us up here to lift you, and the rope is strong. Bring up the alpinstocks that were dropped, too. We may need them again.”
“Well, if I must, I must!” grumbled Browning, who would not have been sorry if they had gone on without him. “Haul away. And remember that my life isn’t insured.”
It was no easy task to lift him to the top, but it was accomplished without mishap.
“No Hans in sight yet,” said Merriwell.
Rattleton, who was running up the path, was heard to give a whoop.
“Fellows, we’re right there!” he announced, hastening back to bear the glad tidings. “I took a peep through the bushes, and the rock isn’t a hundred yards away. I saw the men who were sent up here standing by it, and there wasn’t another soul in sight.”
Merriwell looked at his watch again.
“An hour and twenty minutes since we started. Lead on, Rattleton. If you’ve seen the rock, you may act as guide. We’re after you.”
Rattleton dived into the bushes again with a whoop, closely followed by Merriwell, who saw in a few moments that Harry was right.
The goal was just before them, with only the timekeepers there, and they had won the race!
CHAPTER IX – THE VALIANT DUTCH BOY
Where was Hans?
The Dutch boy, who by reason of his roly-poly body and fat, short legs, was not well adapted to mountain climbing, was much fatigued by the headlong haste with which his friends proceeded.
“Some volks peen plame vools enough to call dos sbort,” he secretly grumbled, panting along at the heels of the procession. “Maype it vos sbort vor me, alretty, py shimminy! put don’t you pelief me! Ven I vos caughd py a voolishness like dot again, I hope I vill gick someboty.”
He was stumping along in this manner, dropping gradually behind, when at a short turn in the path his friends vanished. At the same moment a pebble that had found its way into one of his shoes began to cut his foot so that he could hardly walk.
“Wa-ow!” he gurgled. “Dot feel shust like I pit a snake by. Dunder and blitzens! Dot toe vos cud off, I pelief me!”
He stared along at the dim path and at the bushes beyond which he heard the voices of his friends, then plumped himself down on a rock and began hastily to unloose the shoe lace.
“Uf I get oudt uf dis scrabe, anudder vun von’t go into me right avay, I dell you!” he muttered. “I haf to haf a boultice vor dot toe, I pelief me, der vay id veels. Waow!”
He pulled off the shoe with a jerk, felt of the injured toe, and gave the shoe a shake to remove the pebble.
It rolled out, a tiny thing, not larger than a small shot, but with a cutting edge almost as hard as a diamond.
“Some liddle dhings make a pigger vuss dan – ”
He cocked an ear around, and listened for the voices, but they