Hardy Boys Mysteries - 034 The Hooded Hawk Mystery by Franklin W. Dixon

Author:Franklin W. Dixon [Dixon, Franklin W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub

CHAPTER XV

Chef in Trouble

horrified at seeing his brother slip off the cliff, Frank ran toward the brink where Joe had been. John Fenwick followed.

But the earth, loosened by Joe’s plunge, made the footing unsure and it seemed for a moment as if they too would go over into the chasm. All this time the falcon was circling and screaming overhead.

“Joe!” Frank wailed. “Joe!”

But his brother could not answer. Plunging down the steep face of the cliff, Joe had clutched frantically at roots and vines, only to have them snap off or slip through his fingers.

At last, however, his hands gripped a large tree root. It held, and the muscles in his arms and shoulders jerked painfully as they caught the full force of his descent.

Now, coughing and half blinded from the dust stirred up by his slide, he could only grit his teeth

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114 The Hooded Hawk Mystery

and hang on. Blood from the deep scratches made by the falcon’s sharp talons was running down his cheek, and the whole experience had left him weak.

Gradually, however, his strength returned and he looked below. There was a smooth shelf of rock a short distance beneath him and in relief he dropped to it. The overhang of the cliff made it impossible for Frank and Mr. Fenwick to see him without leaning out dangerously over the cliff.

Frantic now, Frank cried, “Joe! Joe!”

“I’m all right!” his brother called back, but a grim smile crossed his face as he watched the mother hawk heading toward her nest and young.

“Where are you?” Frank called down.

“On a ledge below the rim of the cliff.”

Moments later Joe saw a lifeline swinging toward him. Because of the cliff’s overhang, the rope was a bit beyond his reach, and for a while it looked as though he might still plummet to the depths in trying to reach it. Finally, Joe broke off a length of curling root, and using it for a hook, managed to bring the rope close enough to grasp it.

Quickly he lashed it around his waist and yelled, “Haul away!”

As Frank and Mr. Fenwick pulled hand over hand on the line, Joe braced his legs against the rock wall and literally “walked” up the cliff with their help. When he came up over the edge, Frank gripped the back of Joe’s jacket and rolled him to complete safety.

Chet in Trouble 115

At sight of Joe’s blood-covered face, Frank asked in concern, “Are you hurt badly?”

Joe managed a grin. “I guess I look worse than I feel. It’s mostly my pride that’s hurt. I should have watched for that mother hawk. Thank goodness she finally returned to her nest.”

“You learned the hard way,” Mr. Fenwick remarked, then pointed out a mountain stream in which Joe could wash the blood from his face. “I feel it was my fault. We’re lucky it ended so well.”

Joe said, “Forget it. But how about my taking a look at the falcon you brought up? I’d like to see one fledgling, anyway!”

The falcon’s tail and wing feathers were short because the bird was so young.

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