“You obstinate son of a sea-cook, I tell you I won’t go on unless you go back!”
“Nick, it will take me just about half a minute to get near enough to push you off. And I’m goin’ to do it, too, if you don’t hold your jackass jaw and go on.”
There was silence for the space of full twenty seconds while Ellhorn watched Tuttle edging his way carefully along the narrow shelf. Then he spoke:
“Well, anyway, Tom, don’t you try to take a deep breath or that belly of yours will tip the mountain over and make it mash somebody on the other side!” Then he turned his head and shuffled along toward the top of the cliff.
The shelf widened again presently and they found the rest of it comparatively easy traveling. At one place there were some drops of dried blood on the ledge and in another a bloody stain on the wall at about the height of a man’s shoulders. This confirmed their belief that Haney and Jim had found and climbed this narrow ledge with the meat and camp supplies on their backs. When they reached the top Nick held out his hand and said:
“Say, old man, I reckon we-all didn’t mean anything we said back there.”
Tom took the proffered hand and held it a moment:
“No, I guess not. I sure reckon Emerson would say we didn’t. Nick, what made you get that fool notion in your head that I didn’t have sand to get through?”
“I didn’t think you didn’t have sand, Tommy. I thought—the trail was so narrow, I thought you’d tumble off.” A broad grin sent the curling ends of his mustache up toward his eyes and he went on: “Tom, you sure looked plumb ridiculous!”
Shaking hands again, they turned to their work. They stood on the steep, sloping side of the mountain, which was cracked and seamed with a network of chasms and gulches. A ridge ran slantingly down the mountain and the intricate, irregular network of narrow, steep-sided cracks and gulches which filled the slope finally gave, on the right hand, into the deep, gaping canyon which had been their thoroughfare, and on their left into another, apparently similar, some distance to the south. Farther up, toward the backbone of the ridge, there seemed to be a narrow stretch, unbroken by the gulches, which extended to the next canyon. They made their way thither and walked slowly along, stopping now and then to scan the mountain side or to sweep with their eyes the visible portions of the canyons below and behind them. They had covered more than half the distance between the two canyons when Tom, who had been studying one particular spot far down the mountain, exclaimed: