"Chap up there?" she echoed vacantly. "My friend?"
"Pudgy, pink-faced man," he informed her—"Crill."
She lifted her head with trepidation to gaze towards the top of the palisade. "I don't know any such person," she asserted after a slight pause.
He scrutinized her searchingly for a moment. "All right," he declared. "If he's not your friend we'd better get out of this quick. Unluckily the trip down's impossible. We've got to go on up."
As he spoke he leaned backward to scan the cliff face above; and in a second his plan was formed. On the left side of the girl, and only a couple of feet above her head, a broad-topped, solid-looking rock jutted out from the precipice wall. Thence, for the rest of the distance upward, the masses of stratified stone sloped slightly back, and offered secure stepping places that reached by easy stages all the way to the top. If they could gain the first shelf, the remaining ascent should not prove difficult.
"Feel equal to staying here alone—just for a minute?" Dexter inquired, his warm hand pressing the girl's fingers.
He felt her shoulders grow tense as she tried to steady herself. "Why, I—if I must—yes," she replied with faint assurance.
"Good girl!" he commented briskly, before she could change her mind. "Here! We'll plant you like an anchor." He showed her a tiny indentation where she could brace her foot, and then helped her fix her fingers in the chink that served him for support.
Without further ado he leaned outward, crowded his body around her cowering figure, and a second later had flattened himself against the cliff at her left side. He stretched his arm overhead, and touched the ledge above.
Groping, he found a small weather-gouged groove that afforded him a gripping surface. He caught his hold with both hands and drew his weight up bodily, as a gymnast chins himself. With a quick, violent effort he hooked one knee over the rim, and the next moment had hoisted himself onto a wide, level shelf of stone.