“How long have you been there?”
“Two days. I fell in at night whilst I was cutting acrost country.”
Kate fastened her rope to the horn of the saddle, tightened the cinch carefully, and dropped the other end to him. She swung to the back of the horse and braced herself by resting her full weight on the farther stirrup.
“Now,” she told him.
The imprisoned man tried to pull himself up, bracing his feet against the rough projections of the rock wall to help him. But he could not manage the climb. At last he gave it up with an oath.
“We’ll try another way,” the girl told him cheerfully.
At spaces about a foot distant she tied knots in the rope for about the first six feet.
“This time you’ll make it,” she promised. “You can get up part way as you did before. Then I’ll start my horse forward. Keep braced out from the wall so as not to get crushed.”
He growled an assent. Once more she got into the saddle and gave the word. He dragged himself up a few feet and then the cowpony moved forward. The legs of the man doubled up under the strain and he was crushed against the wall just as he reached the top. However, he managed to hang on and was dragged over the edge with one cheek scratched and bleeding.
“Might a-known you’d hurt me if you moved so fast,” he complained, nursing his wounded face in such a way as to hide it.