When this had been accomplished his next movement was to whip the rope around a point of rock that jutted out close at hand. It was the same action that a cowboy would bring into play in snubbing a steer he had roped.
“Great!” cried Bob, who had watched all this with eyes that seemed to be fairly bulging from his head.
But there was still more to be done. Sim had managed to secure only a makeshift grip on the rock. His hands were slipping by degrees, though he had held on with desperation until he felt the rope drawn taut, and knew that Frank had made fast above.
Then he let go!
Bob gave an involuntary cry. He could not help it, even while understanding how this emergency had been provided against by his chum who used the rope.
“Somebody give me a hand!” called Frank, who had hold of the lariat close to where it had been several times wound around the projecting stone.
Bob dropped out of the saddle. Really, considering the fact that this sort of business was quite new to him, the black Kentucky horse was acting very well. Perhaps Domino took pattern from his companion, Buckskin. At any rate he did not prance wildly, after the fashion of the big bay ridden by Mr. Riley; and Bob afterwards declared that he was quite proud of his mount.
Of course, once the two stout boys bent to the task, they quickly drew the dangling Sim to the top of the wall, so that he could scramble on to the cliff path. Outside of being red in the face, from his having hung head downward, the ex-cowboy seemed none the worse for his experience.
But he was in a pretty heated condition mentally. To his mind that trick played by the two fugitives was the meanest thing ever heard of. Frank, of course, understood that the main object had been to destroy the cliff path, so as to cut off pursuit. That the explosion had been delayed a little longer than calculated on, was only an accident.
“I’m out of the game by it, anyhow!” grumbled Sim, as he crawled to the edge, to look down to where his late mount lay.