"Hallo!" cried Dick. "This looks promising. Those holes were made with a purpose. I believe we've struck the original Pueblo highway after all."
"It does look like it," I agreed. "But how are we going to get up there?"
"Señor," said Pedro to Dick, "if you will stand on my shoulders, I think you can reach those holes."
"All right," replied Dick. "Let's try."
It was simple enough. Dick easily reached the lower steps, which, it was hardly to be doubted, had been cut for the purpose, and scrambled up to the top. Then, letting down the rope we had brought for such an emergency, he called to me to come up. With a boost from Pedro, and with the rope to hold on by, I was quickly standing beside my partner, when up came Pedro himself, hand over hand.
If this was really the road by which the Pueblos originally came up—and from those nicks in the rock we felt pretty sure it was—it was the roughest and by long odds the most upended road we had ever traveled over. It was, in fact, a climb rather than a walk: we had to use our hands nearly all the time.
We had come within a hundred feet of the top, when, looking upward, I was startled to see on an overhanging ledge a large, tawny, cat-like animal calmly sitting there looking down at us.
"Look there, Dick!" I cried. "What's that?"
"A mountain-lion!" exclaimed my partner. "My! What a shot!"
It happened, however, that we were at a point where it was necessary to hold on with our hands to prevent ourselves from slipping back; it was impossible to shoot. The "lion" therefore continued to stare at us and we at him, until Dick shouted at him, when the beast leisurely walked off and disappeared round a corner.