“If the situation was not so desperate I would never dream of attempting to climb that awful height,” mused the boy, “but necessity often drives where courage would falter.”
So thinking, he cast off his coat, laid it on the ground and his hat beside it. Then he clambered over the pile of stones that lay at the foot of the cliff and began his climb. For the first forty feet or so his task was not so difficult. But it was hot, and the perspiration began to run off the laboring lad in streams.
He paused to rest. Jack was now, as has been said, about two score feet from the floor of the valley. Up to this point the cliff had sloped at quite an angle; but now it reared itself upward in a seemingly impassable escarpment, like the wall of a giant’s castle.
“Now for the real tug–of–war,” thought Jack, when he had rested.
Tightening his belt, he braced himself for what he knew would be a desperately dangerous climb. First he dug out holes to fit his hands and then began working his way up. From time to time he was able to grasp bushes and stunted trees, and these helped him greatly in his task. When he reached even the narrowest ledge he laid down to rest, extending himself at full length and panting like a spent hound.
Owing to the soft nature of the rock, however, he progressed rather better than he had anticipated. But it was slow work. From time to time the face of the cliff was so precipitous that he was compelled to make a detour to find an easier place to cut his steps.
Once he looked down; but he did not repeat the experiment. The sight of the dizzy height, to which he clung like some crawling insect, almost unnerved him. For several minutes, with a palpitating heart and a sickened feeling at the pit of his stomach, he hugged the rock, not daring to look either up or down.
But at last his courage came back and he began his painful progress upward once more. Foot by foot he climbed, and at last, when resting on a ledge, he dared to look about him to see what progress he had made. To his delight he saw that he had come more than halfway up the precipice, although above him its rugged face still towered frowningly as if daring him to surmount it.
THE SIGHT OF THE DIZZY HEIGHT ALMOST UNNERVED HIM.