But here the chaos of sand, shrubs, and rocks, became next to inextricable, and to proceed up through the hindrances, varying each instant in material but not in degree, would have been pronounced simply preposterous by the most exacting.
Nevertheless, Oliver was a man whom nothing could stop in his purpose, for he twined in and out, crawled as supple as a serpent, thought nothing of his hands and knees exposed to the adamantine sands and the harsh catclaw bushes that would have frightened the half-naked savages, and if ofttimes he was compelled to retrace his steps when he had ventured into a non-egress, it was only the better to resume his unwearied way.
"I'm no hog," growled he once, when he paused to suck a more than usually deep briar scratch which he believed poisonous, "and I know when I hev' my fill o' sich 'snaking,' but it's got to be did. Besides," looking up from the semiobscurity to the top of the gorge where the sky glowed the more gorgeously by contrast, "night must not catch us no farther up, and agen," sniffing like an old sailor, "ain't thar rain in the air?"
"I am stifled with the sulphur reeking out of these cracks," returned his companion; "on this roof of Old Nick's kitchen, I really am not aware I have a nose upon me for weather scenting."
Oliver grunted as a kind of quiet laugh, and on he scrambled.
At the same time that one would have deemed all his faculties absorbed in picking the course and caring for his own safety, the hunter found time, not merely to caution his comrade, but to intervene at moments of peril. This constant attention in safekeeping once even almost led to his losing his life or limbs, for in choosing for himself the wider part of a crack, the edge gave way altogether, and but for Gladsden clutching by the side, with a little fold of the skin, too, in the grasp, the hunter must have fallen within the crust.
"Thank'ee, pard.!" observed the guide, wincing comically; "That time you grabbed flesh and ha'r. A little more of sich a grip, an' you'd hev' had to leave me behind, sot here; on my hind legs, a-howling!"
At last, after nearly twice the three hours assigned too rashly for the whole effort had been spent in scaling the anfractuosities at which a mountain sheep would have baulked, they had at all events ascended the barranca and were under the centre of the part of the hill where the Yaquis had dragged an old forty-pounder, brought over by the conquerors, and for long rusting at some farm in the neighbourhood. Their rejoicing at the accomplishment of their work coincided so closely with that of the two white men that the latter smiled to be so indirectly cheered.
Stopping to take breath, they looked back with relief and pride at the horrible gulfy path which they had overcome, darkening into blackness with the failing light.
Whilst the cannon was placed on some logs so that it could be trained on the hacienda, to the level of which this hill almost rose, the Yaquis were silent, so interested were they in the operation superintended by Lieutenant Garcia, inflated into abnormal pomposity by becoming the cynosure.