he man was evidently crawling like a short thick serpent to reach a
spot from which he could shoot; but it was not to be, for covering the
Indian's side the boy waited a full minute to see if a better
opportunity presented itself; and it came, for after lying perfectly
still for awhile the man raised himself a little as if to clear
something in his way, and then gave a spasmodic jerk, rolled over
sidewise, and came gliding out from beneath the hanging growth, to fall
like those who had gone before.

"How horrible!" thought Chris with a shudder, as he re-charged the
barrel he had just fired. Then bitterly, "More horrible for poor father
if it had been Chris Lee."

The excitement of this fresh attempt to reach him roused him to try
whether he could not obey the order that had been shouted from below,
while the needed spur was now applied in the shape of the one word which
rose up, perfectly clear--

"Try!"

The boy's answer took the form of obedience.

Glancing upward to see that he was quite hidden, and again at the ledge
from which the arrows had come, Chris passed his rifle-sling over his
head and one shoulder, got the piece well over his back, and flattening
himself down upon his chest, edged himself along to get his head a
little beyond the stone of shelter so that he could look down, when he
turned icy with the shiver that ran up his spine. For he was gazing
down a perpendicular portion of the cliff-face to a patch of bushes
fully two hundred feet below.

"Oh, it's impossible!" he cried; but as he uttered the words once more
the command came up--

"Try!"

"Ah, he doesn't know," groaned the boy despairingly, as he shrank
shivering back to his old position, to lie still for a minute, feeling
the palms of his hands grow wet. But the sound of that word _try_
seemed to be echoing on his ear, and thrusting himself more away from
the edge of the shelf over which he had peered, he wrenched his head
round to see whether there was any possible ledge or slope on the other
side of the stone where he had looked before and had seen as it were
that it projected right out.

Once more his heart seemed to leap, for as he looked after backing a
little more, he could see that his feet rested on a ledge formed by one
band of the shale projecting about a foot beyond that above, while two
yards or so beyond this ledge was broken sharply away.

What was beyond he could not see, but the ledge was certainly safer than
the sp