“What we want to do,” Cliff said, “if we can, is to get them somewhere that we can cut them off.”
“That’s talking!” Bill agreed. “But where?”
“Well, if we could have them come up here while we went down,” Nicky began. Then he shook his head for he saw that his idea was rather impossible.
“The way everything is laid out here,” Cliff declared, “it keeps them from us but it keeps us from getting away. If we could just get them to cross that osier bridge over the gulf, we could cut the strands of the support and that would block them for good.”
The bridge he referred to spanned the chasm from one side of it, where the pass they were above ended, to the other, where another path began.
That was the way they had gone toward Quichaka. Returning the secret way, they had gone through the bed of the chasm, with the bridge over their heads, to one side.
“If there was some way to get from the gulf up to the pass on the far side——” Tom said. “There must be. That would account for Whackey getting past us to see the men who are yelling at us right now.”
Bill said that there must be such a way and he took his larger revolver and set out, up the cleft, toward the steep steps. If a man had gone from the chasm up to and across the bridge, he would see some signs and find a way, he declared.
The party passed the intervening time throwing stones to keep the lower enemies interested. Had they been able to surprise the antagonists it would have been easy to stone them away, as the Incas had no doubt done in the old days. But the men on the pass were on their guard and had taken refuge close under the lip of the ledge which overhung the pass a trifle. To fling stones accurately the chums would have had to look far over and invite arrows or possibly bullets if any of the men of the mountain settlements carried arms. The stones were flung simply to keep the others close under the ledge until Bill’s reconnoitering trip was finished.
“Here he comes!” cried Nicky, just before the sun dropped behind the peaks and sent the lower levels into a deep gloom.