e climbing is more ticklish."

Some seventy feet above them projected the first eye-bolt. The winter
accumulations of ice had twisted and bent it down till it did not stand
more than a bare inch and a half above the rock--a most difficult object
to lasso as such a distance. Time and again Hazard coiled his lariat in
true cowboy fashion and made the cast, and time and again was he baffled
by the elusive peg. Nor could Gus do better. Taking advantage of
inequalities in the surface, they scrambled twenty feet up the Dome and
found they could rest in a shallow crevice. The cleft side of the Dome
was so near that they could look over its edge from the crevice and gaze
down the smooth, vertical wall for nearly two thousand feet. It was yet
too dark down below for them to see farther.

The peg was now fifty feet away, but the path they must cover to
get to it was quite smooth, and ran at an inclination of nearly fifty
degrees. It seemed impossible, in that intervening space, to find a
resting-place. Either the climber must keep going up, or he must slide
down; he could not stop. But just here rose the danger. The Dome was
sphere-shaped, and if he should begin to slide, his course would be, not
to the point from which he had started and where the Saddle would catch
him, but off to the south toward Little Yosemite. This meant a plunge of
half a mile.

"I'll try it," Gus said simply.

They knotted the two lariats together, so that they had over a hundred
feet of rope between them; and then each boy tied an end to his waist.

"If I slide," Gus cautioned, "come in on the slack and brace yourself.
If you don't, you'll follow me, that's all!"

"Ay, ay!" was the confident response. "Better take a nip before you
start?"

Gus glanced at the proffered bottle. He knew himself and of what he was
capable. "Wait till I make the peg and you join me. All ready?"

"Ay."

He struck out like a cat, on all fours, clawing energetically as he
urged his upward progress, his comrade paying out the rope carefully. At
first his speed was good, but gradually it dwindled. Now he was fifteen
feet from the peg, now ten, now eight--but going, oh, so slowly! Hazard,
looking up from his crevice, felt a contempt for him and disappointment
in him. It did look easy. Now Gus was five feet away, and after a
painful effort, four feet. But when only a yard intervened, he came to a
standstill--not exactly a standstill, for, like a squirrel in a wheel,
he ma