Return to Black Bear Mountain by Franklin W. Dixon

Author:Franklin W. Dixon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2020-02-17T16:00:00+00:00

9 NOWHERE TO GO BUT DOWN

JOE

THE CAVE DR. K USED AS an escape route didn’t just lead to a dead end. It led to a dead drop. A torn bit of rope dangled from a rusty piton that had been driven into the lip of the cave. There had been a way down. Once. I had no way of knowing how long the rope had been, but it must have led to a place where someone could safely descend the cliff. Wherever that place was, we couldn’t see it, let alone try to reach it.

“How did Max make it down without the rope?” I wondered aloud.

“I’m a little more concerned with how we’re going to make it down,” Frank fretted as the echo of Stinky’s footsteps through the cave grew closer. We had a few minutes at most to devise an escape.

A flash of white fabric caught my eye in the trees on the other side of the canyon. I quickly unzipped our remaining backpack and pulled out my cell phone. The phone may have been useless without reception, but the camera still worked.

“You’re taking pictures?!” Frank squeaked.

“Just getting a closer look,” I said, zooming in as far as the camera would go. “The bear took our binoculars, so I’m improvising.”

The white object grew larger as I zoomed. At first I thought it was a white sheet tangled up in the limbs, but as I got closer, the cords dangling from the edges came into view. “I think I know how Max got down. He jumped.”

“He what?!”

“With a parachute.”

“He didn’t leave two others lying around, did he?” Frank crouched down and began looking for something in the pack. “If we don’t do something fast, we’re done for.” He stood up, holding one of the emergency flares the bear had graciously left behind. “Hopefully this will slow Stinky down.”

I grinned. “Nice thinking.”

He ran a few yards back down the tunnel, lit the flare, and tossed it as far as he could. A thick cloud of smoke instantly filled the back of the cave. All that smoke in such a confined space would definitely leave our pursuer coughing, and might even force whoever it was back until it cleared.

I lay on my stomach, stuck my head out of the cave entrance, and peered down. Heights don’t usually bother me, but looking down at the jagged rocks in the canyon far below made my head spin. I took a deep breath to center myself and studied the cliff, looking for an alternate way down that didn’t involve plunging to our doom.

There was no way to see it standing up, but from my stomach, I could tell that the cliff face didn’t drop straight down from the cave. The lip of the cave jutted out a few feet like a little awning over a narrow ledge hidden behind the vines about ten feet below. If we could get down to it, we might be able to find another route off the cliff. Or at least maybe a place to hide.

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