“You might,” said the doctor, gazing up, “but I’m sure I couldn’t.”
“Oh yes, you could, sir, when one of us has been up and driven a peg here and a peg there into some of those cracks. The stones are quite in layers; and after that we’ll drive a very strong one in, and tie a lariat to it to hang down like a balustrade to steady whoever goes up.”
“But where are the pegs?”
“Down below, sir, growing in amongst those trees. I vote we go down, have some dinner, and come up again after I have chopped as many pegs as I think we shall want. I should bring the axe up here too, so as to drive them in. Why, Chris, lad, we could make a regular ladder up there.”
Griggs’ proposal was adopted, and that same afternoon found them in the same place, with the American ready for action, and the boys carrying rope and pegs.
And now what had seemed difficult before had grown easy, the American, who had cut plenty of tough short pieces of pine and formed them chisel-ended, driving one in between the natural faults in the stone with the head of the axe, and then climbing upon it to drive in another, which formed a standing-place in turn, the slope upward of the cliff making the task easy—so easy, in fact, that less than half-an-hour sufficed to bring him to the spot where the shaft was in fair preservation, with its projecting pieces of stone left by the original carvers of the way.
Here the American fixed the strong peg pitched up to him by Chris, who had followed him up step by step, and after tying to it one end of the lariat thrown up by Ned, the two workers made their way up to the intact shaft, and reached the first cell of the next row, some fifty feet above the other, gaining at the same time a better view of the terrace in front, and seeing that it was comparatively very little broken-down, merely worn by the weather.
“Here, let’s go on a little way,” cried Chris eagerly.
“No,” replied Griggs; “fair play’s a jewel. Let’s go back; your father will like to be one of the first to begin exploring.”
“So he will; but look, here they come.”