Page:The Missing Chums.djvu/122

116 at length his fingers touched the smooth rock at the water's edge. But the rock was almost vertical and it was so smooth and slippery that there was no hope of a handhold. He swam to one side, feeling the rock as he went. Despair seized him as he found that the rock still rose steeply above. If they had fallen into a circular pit they were doomed.

In pitch darkness, then, they battled their way about the border of the pool until at length Frank's searching fingers closed about a rocky projection that seemed to indicate a change in the surface of the cliff.

He was right. There was a small ledge at this point, and he was able to drag himself up on it. There was room enough for both of them, and he turned and grasped Joe's hand, dragging him up on the rock after him. They crouched there in dripping clothes, breathing heavily after their exertion. Presently Frank began to grope upward, still examining the surface of the cliff.

He found that it sloped gradually, and that the surface was rough, with a number of footholds.

"I think we can climb it," he told Joe. "It's mighty dark, but if we can ever get back on the main ledge again we'll be all right." He said this because he judged that the place that they had found was on the side of the pool that