"If it was summer," began Miller, busying himself with the rope, "we could get around this here little rock. But now there’s nothin’ t’ do but go over it, because the mountain on each side shelves down so steep now we couldn’t git down on snow-shoes or off ’em to save our necks. We’d bring down a load of snow on our heads if we should try."
As he talked, he knotted the rope securely around a tree standing near the edge of the rock. "Right here the cliff slopes so I can just slide you down," Miller’s gruff voice ran on in jerks, "and then I can slide after ye. But I take it you ain’t used to mountains and this sort of game, and so I guess ye’d better hitch the end round yer waist."
He tossed the end of the rope to Ross. "Take off yer shoes, and pack ’em in your hand," he directed when with numb, trembling fingers the boy had knotted the rope. "Forty feet down," Miller continued, "you’ll come to a ledge. Stop there, and free the line."
A moment more, snow-shoes in hand, Ross was on his back sliding down an almost perpendicular wall, his hair doing its best to raise his cap from his head. Slowly he was let down, down, so far as he could see, into space. Then suddenly, just as he had closed his eyes in dizzy terror, his feet struck snow into which he sank to his knees, and the rope above slackened.
The ledge had stopped him, but it seemed to Ross but an insecure footing hung between heaven and earth. It was a mere path across the face of the cliff not more than three feet wide at the widest part.
Ross untied the end; and then, as he felt it jerked from behind him, he covered his eyes with his hand and stood shivering, crowding back against the cliff.
It was the work of a moment only for Miller to slide down the rope and stand beside him.
"Hug the cliff," directed Ross’s conductor shortly, "and follow me. No, don’t put on your shoes. I’ll break the trail fer ye."
Slowly they crawled across the face of the cliff, the ledge leading downward. At the base they were in a winding cañon scarcely twenty yards wide. Here they buckled on their snow-shoes again.
"If," said Miller, bending over the straps, "we see it’s best fer you t’ stay a few days with my pard and let me go back and help Uncle Jake, I wouldn’t do much investigatin’ of the premises around here if I was you."