'I'm not so sure of that,' Snap answered; 'they couldn't from here, of course, but perhaps there's a way round. Remember, they climbed the Dru.'
And now, with the dogged pluck which characterised the boy, he was going to look for what he called a way round. The position was this. The hollow in which the party lay ended abruptly. Beyond it was the polished rock, without a blade of grass or a twig upon it. Above was two hundred feet of the same, bending, if anything, a little towards the would-be climber, as if the giant spire were about to tumble over into the gulf of clouds and mist which lay below. If any of our little party toppled out of their nest they had a clean run for two or three thousand feet, as old Dick said, and 'nothing of any consequence to hinder 'em between that and the prairie.'
The lariat was fast round old Dick's waist, and securely fastened, too, to Snap's leather belt, which he had taken the precaution of fixing well up under his armpits. A close scrutiny of the rock to the right of the crevice had shown the boys that, though there was no cranny big enough for a sparrow to perch upon above, there was just one narrow, thread-like crack running from the end of their niche towards the sharp edge of the needle, which, jutting out some fifteen feet from them, formed a corner round which they could not see anything.
'That's our chance,' said Snap; 'I can get my fingers in here, and, as I can see it all the way, I expect it gets larger further on.'
All the party looked white and drawn except Snap; it was a desperate risk, and all knew it, and old Dick would gladly have persuaded the boy to rest content with their present quarters. But it was too late now. As the old foreman knelt with his face inwards, gripping the rock, ready at any moment to take the strain which Snap's fall would put upon the rope, the latter was digging his fingers deeply into the solitary crack. He had taken off his moccasins, and was barefooted and in his shirt-sleeves. Even his cap was off. He wanted no encumbrances, however slight, just now. Two or three times he tried his grip, and then, clinging with his bare feet to the smooth rock, he let himself go and hung spread-eagled against the granite wall.
ON THE FACE OF THE CLIFF
As he hung dangling by the first joints of his fingers over the horrid abyss a cold wind came and struck him. It blew his damp hair back from his face, it seemed to chill his straining fingers, and to threaten to tear him from his precarious hold. But not for one half-second did he hesitate. He had considered the peril and braced himself to meet it. Slowly, a foot at a time, he worked his way along. The first foot or two was the difficult part of his journey, for there, as he shifted his hold, his body hung literally upon four fingers and no more. But he comforted himself with the thought of the stout lariat round his waist and the strong arms which held it in the niche he had left. After the first few feet he was able to get more of his hands into the rock, and, though his eye had not noticed them, his bare feet found little inequalities and rough spots to which they clung like the feet of a fly to the ceiling.
As he drew near the corner his excitement grew, hope and fear alternating in his breast. At last he could look round it, and he saw that the proverb was again justified, 'Where there's a will there's a way.'