"By Jove, Steve, we have no time to lose," said Ned. "Look at that!" and he pointed to the mountains. "If this is going to be an early winter, Phon is a lost man."
"Lead on, Ned," replied Steve, "I'll follow you as long as my legs will let me, but if you can find any way of avoiding those dead-falls to-day, do so. Nature never meant me for a squirrel or a Blondin."
"The only other way if you don't like balancing along these logs is down there over these boulders, and the water there is thigh-deep in places, and cold as ice;" and Corbett pointed to the bed of the creek a hundred feet below.
"Let's try it for a change, Ned, it cain't be worse than this," panted Steve, who at the moment was crawling on his hands and knees through a mesh-work of burnt roots and rampikes.
"All right, come along," said Ned, and using their hands more than their feet, the two men crept down the rock wall of the canyon until they reached the bed of the creek.
Here things went fairly well with them at first. The water was icy cold, but their limbs were so bruised and feverish that the cold water was pleasant to them; and though the boulders over which they had to climb were slippery and hard to fall against, they were not more slippery and very little harder than the logs above. After two or three miles of wading, however, Steve's limbs began to get too numbed with cold to carry him any further, and a return to dry land became necessary. Looking up for some feasible way out of the trap into which they had fallen, Ned at last caught sight of what appeared to be fairly open country along the edge of the canyon, and of a way up the rock wall which, though difficult, was not impossible.
"Here we are, Steve," he cried as soon as he saw the opening. "Here's an open place and a fairly easy way to it. Come along, let's get out of this freezing creek;" and so saying he went at the rock wall and began to scramble up like a cat.
Steve was either too tired or too deliberate to follow his friend at once, and in this instance it was well for him that he was so, for a second glance showed him a far easier way to the upper edge of the canyon than the direct route taken by Ned.
Clambering slowly up by the easier way of the two, Steve was surprised not to find Ned waiting for him when he at length gained the top of the rocks, and still more surprised when, after waiting for some minutes, he heard a faint voice below him calling him by name.
"Steve! Steve!" cried the voice.