“Pards, we’ve reached a ticklish spot, and it’s for you to say whether we shall wait for daylight afore trying it.”
“What is its nature?” asked the captain, as he and the two behind him also reined up their animals.
“The trail winds through these peaks in front, and instead of being like that we’ve been riding over all along, keeps close to the side of the mountain. On the right is the solid rock, and on the left it slopes down for I don’t know how many hundred feet, afore it strikes bottom. Once started down that slide, you’ll never stop 195 till you hit the rocks below like that mass of stone that tumbled over in front of you.”
“How wide is the path?” asked the parson.
“There’s more than a mile where it isn’t wide enough for two of us to ride abreast, and there are plenty of places where a horse has got to step mighty careful to save himself. Hercules knows how to do it, for he larned long ago, but I have my doubts about your hosses.”
“It might have been better after all if we had brought the mules,” said the captain.
“Not a bit of it, for Hercules is the only one that knows how to git over such places.”
“How do the others manage it?”
“They’ve never tried it in the night time; that’s what I’m talking ’bout.”
Adams’s description enabled the others to recall the place. It was all that had been pictured and they might well pause before assuming the fearful risk. One reason for wishing to press forward was the knowledge that at the termination of the dangerous stretch, the trail was so smooth and even that for a long distance it would be easy to keep their animals at a gallop, while still further the peril appeared again.