“There must be a trail up the canyon wall!”
“YOU’VE NOTHING TO FEAR FROM ME. I’LL BE DEAD IN TEN MINUTES.”—p. [206]
Early the next morning they were examining more closely than they had done before the walls of the canyon near the carcass. On the right hand side, the same side on which was the canyon where they had their camp, they found a narrow ledge beginning several feet above the boulders which strewed the floor of the canyon at the base of the wall. They found that with care they could walk along it, although in some places it was so narrow that there was scarcely room for Tuttle’s big bulk. Nick was in constant fear lest his friend might topple over, and finally insisted that Tom should go back and wait until he reached the top of the wall or the end of the ledge. Tuttle blankly refused to do anything of the sort.
They were then in the narrowest place they had found, and it was only by flattening their bodies against the rock and clinging with all the strength in their fingers to the little knobs and crevices which roughened the wall that they could keep their footing. Nick, standing flat against the precipice with a hand stretched out on each side, looked over his shoulder at Tom, who was a few feet in the rear. He also was facing the wall, clinging with both hands and shuffling his feet along sidewise, a few inches at each step. Beyond, the ledge rose in a gradual incline to the top of the cliff, perhaps six hundred feet farther on. Below, the wall dropped abruptly a hundred feet to the boulder covered floor of the canyon.
“Tommy,” said Nick, “you-all better go back. It ain’t safe for a man of your size.”
“Go back! Not much!”
“Well, I shan’t go any farther until you do!”
“Then you’ll have to hang on by your eyelids till I get past you!”
“Tom, don’t be a fool!”