tle.

"Well, I moved it!" he said with a gasp. "I'll try again. If I can
only get it started it will do the trick."

Again he pushed, with all his might, but again the same thing happened.
He managed to make the rock sway outward, a little farther over the
edge of the wall, but back it came again into its hollow resting place.

Then Floyd understood the nature of the matter.

"It's a balanced rock," he said to himself. "She's been resting here
for ages, and you can move it just so far but no farther. It would
take a team of army mules to dislodge it."

He looked over the wall again. The Indians were still in the same
place, eagerly talking--a score or more of feet below the boy.

"It's too good a chance to miss!" whispered Floyd desperately. "I
wonder if I can't find some sort of a lever and pry it loose."

He looked about him. Not far away was part of a dead tree branch,
thick as his arm.

"Just what I need!" he exclaimed.

He ran to pick up the branch and, returning with it, set one end under
the balanced rock, that was still swaying slightly from his exertions.

"Now for a last try!" murmured the lad.

He bent his weight on the long end of the improvised lever. The rock
seemed to rise from its socket bed, and to sway outward. There was an
exultation in the boy's heart. He thought, in another instant, that he
could send the great stone crashing down into the midst of the Yaquis.

Then, suddenly there came a sharp report, and Floyd felt himself
falling.

His first feeling was that he had been shot and that this was the end.
But he felt no pain, save a sudden bump as he sprawled on the rocks,
and then he realized what had happened.

He had pressed so heavily on the old and dried piece of wood that it
had snapped and broken with a report like that of a pistol, and he had
dropped.

"Too bad!" murmured Floyd.

As he picked himself up he saw two of the Yaqui Indians running around
a rocky corner. They had evidently been drawn to the place by the
sound.

"No good letting them know what I tried to do," quickly decided Floyd.
"It would only make it worse for us."

Having decided on a line of action it did not take the lad an instant
to carry it out. Quickly he picked up the broken pieces of his lever
and started back with them toward the cave where he and his sister were
held captives.

"Make fire!" he said to the Indians. "Make fire--cook grub!"

"Ugh!" they grunted. They evidently acce