“Thou art so near, and yet so far!” hummed Clancy, staring down at the ball. “I wonder,” he continued, “if we couldn’t come up from below? The cliff doesn’t seem so steep under the shelf.”
“I was thinking of that, Clan,” Merry answered.
“It won’t take me more than half an hour to scare up that reata and an extra piece of rope,” said Darrel. “I reckon the spliced ropes are our best bet, Chip.”
Merry had been taking stock of the cliff face above the shelf. Wind and weather had worn it smooth and slippery, and there was not a projection in the whole thirty feet from the brink to the shelf which a climber could use in getting back to the top of the wall.
“Strikes me,” said Merry, “it’s a difficult job, not to say dangerous. How are you on the climb, Darrel?”
“Well,” he admitted, “I can throw a rope a heap better than I can climb one, but I’ll gamble my spurs I can come over that thirty feet of wall without much trouble.”
“It’s as smooth as glass,” remarked Ballard. “All your weight would be on your arms from the moment you left the shelf—you couldn’t use your feet at all.”
“My arms would stand it.”
“Suppose you had the ball under one arm, Curly?” Clancy queried.
“What’s the matter with kicking the ball into the cañon?” returned Darrel. “I wouldn’t have to tote it back.”