“Maybe. On the other hand, it may not be so narrow as you think. A mountain is the devil for changing its shape from whatever point you look at it—almost in whatever light or shade. Then, again, Greenway may have exaggerated the size of the hole. I tell you what it is, Fanning old chap. I believe I’ve solved the riddle that has been besting you all these years. As you said when we first talked the affair over, ‘two heads are better than one—even donkeys’ heads,’ There’s a third head, and that’s the head of the ‘right nail,’ and I believe we’ve hit it. Saddle up.”
“Don’t be too sanguine, Sellon. You’ll be doubly sold if your idea ends in smoke.”
They were not long in reaching the mountain referred to. It was of conical formation and flat-topped. But from one end of its table-like summit rose a precipitous, razor-backed ridge—serrated and on its broader side taking the shape of a cock’s-comb.
Though steep and in parts rugged, the ascent was easy; indeed, it seemed likely they could ride to the very summit. Renshaw eyeing the towering slope, shook his head.
“It’s rough on the horses,” he said. “They haven’t got any superfluous energy at this stage of the proceedings, and that berg can’t stand much under three thousand feet. Still they’ve got to go with us. If we left them down here they might be jumped; and then, again, if your idea should be the right one, we might be days up there. I only hope we shall find water, anyhow.”
Chapter Twenty Eight.
“It is a White Man’s Skull.”
It was, as Renshaw had put it, “rough on the horses.” But the colonial horse, in contrast to his English brother, is pre-eminently an animal for use, and not for show and the primary object of supporting a crowd of stable hands. So puffing and panting, stumbling a little here and there, the poor beasts gallantly breasted the grassy steep in the wake of their masters, who had elected to spare their steeds by leading instead of riding them.