sees me! He lifted his hand and waved it!” the prisoner of the ledge exclaimed, thrilled with delight. “It’s going to be all right after all! If only I can make them understand that they’ve got to get above so as to pull me up.”

By now he had discovered a second and then a third speeding motor flash around the curve. Undoubtedly, the pacemaker must have made some prearranged signal, for the others immediately cut down their speed, and a minute later jumped from their saddles at the spot where the first rider had dismounted.

He was pointing upward toward the ledge, and the eager Gus was able to catch a few words that came trailing through space.

“What happened to you?” Hugh Hardin was shouting, also making use of his hands in order to help his voice along.

“On a ledge—can’t get up or down—follow the road to log rail, and get me out of this—Gusty Merrivale—been stopped on the road and robbed!” was what the one above shouted down to them.

No doubt his words created something of a sensation, for he could see the three scouts putting their heads close together as though conferring. Then once more Hugh, who was looked upon as the leader by his comrades, called out.

“All right—hold the fort a little while longer—we’re coming up as fast as we can get there—take things easy—we’ll sure yank you up off that ledge—so-long!”

Without wasting another minute, the speaker was seen to straddle his machine and start off, the others following his example shortly afterward.

With a warmer feeling in his heart toward the scouts than he had ever known before, Gus watched them shooting toward the foot of the rise. Now and then he would lose sight of this rider or that one, and for several minutes he could only trace their progress by the dust that arose. Then the last fellow had vanished from view. He knew from the sounds that came occasionally to his ears that they were climbing the ascent which had tried his little runabout’s powers to the utmost.

It seemed a terribly long wait to the impatient boy. He tried to pass the time away by picturing to himself how he would immediately start off after those bold hoboes who had held him up on the road, evidently knowing that he was due with the money to settle with the quarry workers on the semimonthly pay day.

“Hello, down there, Gusty! We’re here on deck, and ready to give you a helping hand!” called out a voice from directly above. The boy, aroused from his train of thought, looking directly up, saw a friendly face, which he immediately recognized as belonging to Hugh Hardin, the leader of the Wolf Patrol.

Immediately another countenance appeared alongside, this time being the rosy one of Billy Worth, nor was the third scout long in showing up near by.

“How can you get me up there?” asked Gus anxiously. Now that another crisis in his affairs had arrived, he began to feel dubious again.

“I’m trying to figure it out,” the other replied. “If it comes to the worst, we can use a sapling that I noticed lying alongside the road below here, and have you climb up that.”

“Oh! that same sapling has already played a part in my troubles!” exclaimed the boy below, with something like a smile, “and perhaps it would be only evening it up if you used it to get me out of here. But I’ve got a mighty lame shoulder, you see. I had a fight with that eagle over there on that stone cap, and I reckon I nearly broke his wing, but first he gave me some ugly clips. Why, I had to tie myself to the rock with this piece of rope so I wouldn’t be knocked off!”

“Did you say a rope?” quickly asked the scout leader.

“Yes, this short piece that the men lowered me down here with, and then threw after me, knowing that I couldn’t use it to get any further down the precipice,” and the boy on the shelf held it up as he spoke.

“Oh! that makes it as easy as falling off a log,” came from Hugh cheerfully. “All you have to do is to fix the loop under your arms, and when I lower a cord, tie it to the other end of your rope. Then we’ll get hold of it, and up you come!”

“That sounds good to me!” declared Gus, already warming toward the boy who it seemed was fated to become his rescuer.

A minute later and the dangling cord came within his reach, and as he had already made the noose secure around his body, Gus hastened to tie this to the end of his rope. He saw it mount speedily upward, and presently a shout from Billy announced that the rope had come into their hands.

“All ready there?” demanded the patrol leader. “Dead sure the loop will hold?”

“It did when they let me down,” replied Gus with the utmost confidence. “Please hurry up and begin. And be sure not to slip, because it’s pretty far down to the bottom. A fellow wouldn’t know what hit him if he took that drop.”

“Don’t worry about us!” said Billy Worth. “We’ve practiced this same thing many a time just for fun. You never can tell when it pays to know how to get a fellow out of a hole. Scouts learn all kinds of clever stunts, you know, Gusty. This one is going to help you a heap, seems like.”

Right then and there Gus Merrivale realized that he had been judging these boys from the wrong standpoint. Really, he had refused to give them credit for being other than a lot of silly chaps who wasted their time in camping out, and learning things that could never be of any earthly good to anyone. After this he was bound to look deeper into the movement. And his heart warmed toward Hugh and his chums in a way he would have never believed possible a few hours before.

The rope grew taut, and then he felt himself being lifted from the ledge, and steadily raised foot by foot. Presently he could reach up and catch hold of the lowermost log that served as a barrier alongside the mountain road to prevent accidents to vehicles coming down the grade.

It was with a thankfulness he could hardly find words to express that the boy was assisted over the railing, and found his feet firmly planted on the roadway. He drew a long breath of relief, possibly the very first that he had dared indulge in since being held up by those two brazen rogues. And then, urged by some better element in his nature, Gusty Merrivale grasped the hand of the patrol leader and squeezed it in his own, passing from Hugh to each of the other scouts.

CHAPTER V.
SEEING THINGS IN A NEW LIGHT.

“Now tell us what happened to you. We’re all wired up about it,” said Billy Worth when Gus had gone the rounds and shaken each of his rescuers most cordially by the hand, as though he meant them to feel that his gratitude was sincere.

“Yes, you said something that sounded like robbed, and we’ve been trying to figure out what it meant ever since,” added Monkey Stallings, who was really a late addition to the troop, though making his way up the ladder by leaps and bounds, being a lad eager to learn all the things of which a first-class scout must have a knowledge in order to obtain his badge.

“Well,” began Gusty with a whimsical grin, “it’s just this way. I’ve been sent up here several times twice a month to carry the money used to pay the hundred Italians and other foreigners working in our granite quarries. I guess somebody must have spotted me this time. Two men, who looked like tramps but who may have been worse than that, lay in wait for me just below here. They had that sapling fixed so that it crossed the road, and I couldn’t