a sudden flash of intelligence in their
puzzled eyes and Nick thwacked his knee resoundingly. Then he spoke
the thought that had burst into each mind:

"There must be a trail up the canyon wall!"

[Illustration: "YOU'VE NOTHING TO FEAR FROM ME. I'LL BE DEAD IN TEN
MINUTES."--_p. 206_]

Early the next morning they were examining more closely than they had
done before the walls of the canyon near the carcass. On the right
hand side, the same side on which was the canyon where they had their
camp, they found a narrow ledge beginning several feet above the
boulders which strewed the floor of the canyon at the base of the
wall. They found that with care they could walk along it, although in
some places it was so narrow that there was scarcely room for Tuttle's
big bulk. Nick was in constant fear lest his friend might topple over,
and finally insisted that Tom should go back and wait until he reached
the top of the wall or the end of the ledge. Tuttle blankly refused to
do anything of the sort.

They were then in the narrowest place they had found, and it was only
by flattening their bodies against the rock and clinging with all the
strength in their fingers to the little knobs and crevices which
roughened the wall that they could keep their footing. Nick, standing
flat against the precipice with a hand stretched out on each side,
looked over his shoulder at Tom, who was a few feet in the rear. He
also was facing the wall, clinging with both hands and shuffling his
feet along sidewise, a few inches at each step. Beyond, the ledge rose
in a gradual incline to the top of the cliff, perhaps six hundred
feet farther on. Below, the wall dropped abruptly a hundred feet to
the boulder covered floor of the canyon.

"Tommy," said Nick, "you-all better go back. It ain't safe for a man
of your size."

"Go back! Not much!"

"Well, I shan't go any farther until you do!"

"Then you'll have to hang on by your eyelids till I get past you!"

"Tom, don't be a fool!"

"Don't you, neither."

"Tom, you're the darnedest obstinate cuss I ever saw in my life.
You'll tip over backwards first thing you know."

"Nick, if Emerson was here it would sure be his judgment that we-all
can get to the top of this cliff. So you shut up and go on."

"I tell you I won't do it till you go back! Darn your skin, I wouldn't
be as pig-headed as you are for a hundred dollars a minute!"

"Well, I wouldn't be as big a fool as you are for a thousand!"