“‘You hain’t got the sense of a blind mule,’ sez he. ‘Do you s’pose I want to drop down the canyon when the shot busts? Pass in a rope through the crack, ’n’ I’ll tie it ’roun’ me, ’n’ then you can touch ’er off kind o’ easy like.’
“Wall, that struck us all as a pious idea. That feller knowed more ’n a dozen blind mules—sed mules weren’t fer off, neither. Wall, we passed in the rope, ’n’ when we pulled boss up, he guv me ’tother end ’n’ tole me to hole on tighter ’n’ a puppy to a root. I tuck the rope, wrapped it ’round me ’n’ climb up fifty feet to a pint o’ rock right under ’nuther pint ’bout a hundred feet higher, that kinder hung over the pint whar I wuz. Boss ’n’ t’other fellers skedaddled up the crevice ’n’ hid.
“Purty soon suthin’ happened. I can’t describe it, gents. The hull canyon wuz full o’ blue blazes, flyin’ rocks ’n’ loose volcanoes. Both sides o’ the gorge, two thousan’ feet straight up, seemed to touch tops ’n’ then swing open. I wuz sort o’ dazed ’n’ blinded, ’n’ felt ez if the prisipasses ’n’ the mountains wuz all on a tangle-foot drunk, staggerin’ like. The rope tightened ’round my stummick, ’n’ I seized onto it tight, ’n’ yelled:
“‘Hole on, pard, I’ll draw you up! Cheer up, my hearty,’ sez I, ‘cheer up! Jes az soon’z I git my footin’, I’ll bring ye to terry firmy!’
“Ye see, I wuz sort of confused ’n’ blinded by the smoke ’n’ dust, ’n’ hed a queer feelin’, like a spider a swingin’ an’ a whirlin’ on a har. At last I got so’z I could see, ’n’ looked down to see if the feller wuz a swingin’ clar of the rocks, but I could n’t see him. The ledge wuz blown clean off, ’n’ the canyon seemed ’bout three thousan’ feet deep. My stummick began to hurt me dreadful, ’n’ I squirmed ’round ’n’ looked up, ’n’ durn my breeches, gents, ef I was n’t within ten foot of the top of the gorge, ’n’ the feller ez wuz blasted out wuz a haulin’ on me up.
“Sez I when he got me to the top, sez I, ‘Which eend of this rope wuz you on, my friend?’
“‘I dunno,’ sez he. ‘Which eend wuz you on?’
“‘I dunno,’ sez I.
“An’, gents, to this day we can’t tell ef it was which or ’tother ez wuz blasted out.”