for three hours they tramped along this obscure trail which ran through such wildness as our scouts had never seen before. then suddenly and to their great surprise they came upon quite a sizable permanent camp. it was on the lower reaches of the mountain and was called hermitage rest, a very good name for it, considering its remoteness and isolation. it was conducted by an old rocky mountain guide named buck whitley, and was the refuge of a dozen or more tired business men who found relaxation in the soothing companionship and hospitality of their host, who boasted that he had never seen a locomotive!
buck whitley was a true rocky mountain character, a holdover from the good old school of kit carson with whom he had many times been on the trail. the camp consisted of some twenty rough cabins, and the pastime of the guests was mostly fishing. the only jarring note in this primitive outfit was a telephone carried from the main line at the hotel on yellowstone lake. this was the only suggestion of civilization. it was buck whitley’s only concession to his tired business men and he professed not only ignorance but scorn of the talk which went over the wire.
our travelers paused at this romantic and sequestered spot for lunch and ate such trout as there is no word in the english language to describe. it was from old buck whitley that mr. wilde derived some information about the neighboring mountain which, evidently, he had not been able to derive at mammoth hot springs. the boys listened intently and with mounting expectancy to the talk between the old scout and mr. wilde and billy, the camera man. this talk involved a series of considerations from which our young heroes seemed to be excluded. it was mr. wilde’s way to amuse himself with the three scouts, to jolly them, but he had not made them cognizant of his plans in detail.
their first real knowledge of the business in hand was now gleaned in this indirect fashion, and they were appalled at the hazardous nature of the work to be undertaken.
“yer got ter go over ter east cliff fer vultures,” said old buck in answer to mr. wilde’s question. “jes’ foller the trail up around ter the north, then around ag’in ter the sout’east, ’en that’ll fetch yer right along the edge of it—vulture’s cliff, they calls it.”
“nests out along there, i suppose?” mr. wilde queried.
“sech as they is,” said the old scout. “yer’ll see a clump o’ sticks, looks somethin’ like a bush, them’s the way they looks. yer got ter look sharp if yer go near ’em.”
“sweep you right off the ledge, huh?” said mr. wilde. evidently he knew something about these matters.
it seemed to westy that he had been investigating the habit of vultures. westy’s thoughts had dwelt mostly on the subject of grizzlies. it was now becoming momentarily evident that mr. wilde had a particular enterprise in hand, that for some reason or other he wished to cast one or more of these horrible birds in a startling role. he screwed his cigar over to the opposite corner of his mouth and listened attentively while old buck whitley narrated a ghastly episode which he had once beheld with his own eyes. the three scouts listened spellbound. the reminiscence involved the fate of a man who many years before had ventured out on vulture cliff and had actually been driven out to the very edge of the dizzy precipice, outmaneuvered by one of those great birds which he had vainly tried to dodge, and pushed over the edge by a sudden skillful swoop of that monster of the air.
“jimmie couldn’t even get his hands on him,” said the old guide, “and he couldn’ dodge ’im neither—no, sir. the bird kept in back of him, keepin’ jimmie between him and the edge, swoopen against him and drivin’ him nearer and nearer till he took a big swoop and came sweepin’ down against him and over he went into the country down yonder. yer can pick out odds and ends of bones, bleached white, down there now with a spyglass. the bird he went down and finished him like they do.”
“i was wondering if they really do that,” said mr. wilde, in a way of business interest. “i was reading about it, but you know these natural history books are cluttered up with all sorts of junk.”
“’tain’t no junk,” said buck whitley. “you folks take my advice and keep away from the edge. don’t get so far out you can’t ketch hold on a tree or somethin’. they’ll back yer right off jes’ like if they was dancin’ with yer.”
“pretty neat, huh,” said mr. wilde. “that’s the kind of stuff we want. i’m going to get a shot at a scene like that if i can fix it. novelty, huh?”
westy, who had listened with rapt attention to this appalling narrative, thought that there might be two opinions about the meaning of the word neat. one thing seemed evident. mr. wilde had a rather more adventurous purpose in view than merely the photographing of wild life. he was after thrills. it seemed as if he had dug up somewhere references to the habit and diabolical skill of vultures in procuring the death of their victims.
westy had read of mortal combats on the edge of precipitous heights. he had seen one man push another from a precipice in the movies. also he had the usual indifferent knowledge about vultures. he knew that they were of great size and strength but were far from being heroic. he knew that they followed armies, and had an uncanny intuition in the matter of where the dead were to be found.
now, from what he had heard, it appeared that in the lonesome and craggy neighborhood of their nests these horrible creatures were wont to play more heroic roles. that by skill and persistence they could make the dizzy precipice their confederate and compass the death of their baffled and outmaneuvered victims by precipitating them upon jagged rocks far below the scene of encounter.
“then they wait a reasonable time,” mr. wilde had said, “before descending to the feast.”
to be involved in an affair of this kind seemed quite a different sort of matter than stalking grizzlies and mountain leopards. in such a predicament a man might be permitted to violate the good and stringent rule of the park and shoot his fearful assailant. but surely he would have no right deliberately to place himself in a position where such means of defense would be necessary. yet it was evidently mr. wilde’s purpose to avail himself of this uncanny habit of the dreadful vulture to stage a scene which would furnish a real thrill to movie fans throughout the land.
how was he going to do this? and to what peril might he intend to subject these boys whom he had jollied and called parlor scouts?
