"Come on," he breathed upward to Jack, who had watched the cow-puncher's daring act with horrified eyes.
"I—I can't," shivered the boy, who, plucky as he was, dreaded the idea of a drop into the dark. "You go on, Pete, and leave me."
"Not much I won't. You make that drop, or I'll give you the biggest hiding you ever had, Jack Merrill, when I get hold of you."
The cowboy had hit on just the words to bring Jack to the proper pitch to take the leap.
"You ain't scared, are you?" whispered up Pete, determined to brace the boy up in the way he knew would prove most effective.
Just as Pete had done a few moments previously, Jack, without a word, knelt for one awful second on the brink of space and then gingerly put over first one leg and then the other. Then followed the same terrible rush into blackness that Pete had experienced, and the same soul-sickening jolt and heart-leap as his fingers gripped, and he hung safe.
"Drop!" snapped Pete.
Jack's fingers obediently unclasped their desperate grip, and he shot downward to be caught in Pete's arms.
"Not so bad when you get used to it," whispered the cow-puncher. "Now then, slide down."
"Slide down—where?"