Suddenly two arrows came whizzing from above. One struck close to Jai Singh, the other narrowly missed Chick.
Instantly there was the response of three shots from below, echoed by shouts from somewhere around out of sight.
“What is happening?” muttered Chick. “Are they fighting over me, and I not able to make a move for myself? If I could only get up to that ledge!”
Jai Singh said nothing. He knew perfectly well that he was an open target for the men who were sending their arrows from some safe cover above him. But, since he could not help himself, why should he give way to futile lamentations?
There were no more arrows. Instead, a chorus of shrieks and oaths in a strange tongue burst forth. Then Chick saw a white man tearing down a narrow path which wound around the face of the rock above him.
Seemingly there was nothing to prevent him diving over the edge when he should come a little farther.
Chick had just time to see the fugitive on his headlong way, and to note that two dark-skinned men who resembled the rascals they had met when the medicine man had been killed by the snake in the forest were following. Then something else seemed to leap into his vision from nothingness, although common sense told him it had been there all the time.
The something was a cleft in the rock at the edge of the precipice. It was only a few feet from that which held him by his one wrist.
“If I can reach that crack,” he murmured, “I might be able to drag myself up, and——”
Chick did not finish the sentence even to himself. Taking a firm grip of himself, so that he should not allow mere pain to swerve him from the purpose he had formed, he swung, with all his power, in the direction of the crevice he had just noticed.