Looking around for a tall tree, Blaise found a tapering spruce, growing in a pocket of deeper soil and towering above its fellows. The stubs of the lower branches, that, deprived of light by adjacent trees, had died and fallen off, formed a ladder, up which he climbed, Hugh not far behind. Reaching the live limbs, they pushed their way among the thick masses of dark green needles. The smaller lad went on until the slender spire bent threateningly under his weight.
The moon had come out from behind the clouds, and the paling sky foretold the dawn. From his perch above the surrounding trees, Blaise could see the water, and, across it, the narrow black line of the low point. On the other side, directly below him, he could make out from the growth that the ground dipped down. Beyond the slight dip, the rising ranks of trees betrayed the steepness of the ascent. A little to his right and far up, his keen eyes detected a bare stretch of rock between the masses of foliage above and below. He took a long look in every direction, then started to climb down.
Hugh, learning from the movement of the branches above him that Blaise was descending, also moved farther down. There, resting on a stout limb, he waited for his brother.
“What did you make out?” he asked eagerly. “I could see that we are part way up the ridges. Have we kept a straight course?”
“Yes, we have come straighter than I feared, but we are scarce more than half-way up, and we must go farther to the left. You remember that bare cliff?”
“The wall, like a fortification, that we saw from across the bay?”
“The same. We cannot climb that place. We must go to the left to avoid it. Come, we must make haste.”
Darkness still lay deep in the woods, as the two plunged down the short slope into a narrow and shallow gully. Through the thicker growth at the bottom, they threaded their way to the left a hundred yards or more, then began to ascend again. The rapidly rising ground, interrupted by shallow depressions only, served as a guide. Where the slope was regular and not too steep and there was soil enough to anchor them, trees grew thick, but abrupt bare places, masses of tumbled rocks and almost vertical walls made up much of the way. The northwestern side of the long point was far more abrupt than the southeastern, but the increasing light made it possible for the boys to choose their path. They were no longer compelled to proceed by sense of feeling only. Sound of wind, active of limb, and goaded on by the signs of breaking day, they climbed swiftly and without pause.
Crossing a narrow shelf of broken rock débris, that had crumbled into soil deep enough to bear trees, they came to the last rise. By going farther to the left, they had thought to avoid the bare, pillared, rock ramparts, and had indeed escaped the steepest and highest stretch. Nevertheless the cliff before them was almost vertical, and clothed with only an occasional sturdy, dwarfed mass of cedar or trailing juniper, a little seedling tree, stunted bush or tiny plant, growing in crevice or hollow, and the ever present, tight clinging moss and lichens. Had the ancient rock not been ribbed and blocked and weathered, it would have been unclimbable. The splitting off of blocks and scaling away of flakes, which had crumbled into débris at the foot of the cliff, had left shelves and crannies affording some foothold and finger-hold to the active climber.
It was a bad place to go up but not an impossible one. The fugitives paused only long enough to select what appeared to be a possible route up a sort of flue, caused by the falling out of one of the pillars. Blaise went first, and Hugh would have followed close behind, had not the half-breed boy bade him, somewhat sharply, wait below. If Blaise lost his hold and slipped back, it would not advantage him any to take his elder brother down with him. The lad was nearing the top when he let his weight rest too heavily on an insecure ledge. The rock flaked off, and he was left hanging, one hand thrust into a crack, the other clinging to a cedar stem. Down below, Hugh held his breath in suspense. For the interval of an instant, while the agile climber drew up his left foot and thrust his toes into a cranny, the cedar held. Then its roots pulled loose. But Blaise managed to keep his balance, and quickly hooked his strong fingers around the rim of the hole where the cedar clump had been growing. In a few moments he was over the top, and it was Hugh’s turn to make the ascent.