CHAPTER FORTY TWO.
HOW TO TURN ROUND.
There was another puff of smoke, and another, followed by their cracksand echoes; a few moments' pause, and two more, with the result thatevery Indian on the ledge disappeared, two of them falling prone, to liemotionless, the others to hurry to where their companions held the reinsthat had been passed to them.
Chris saw nothing of this, but at every report coming from down in thedepression his heart leaped, knowing as he did that the sharp crackswere the reports of rifles, and that these could only be fired by hisfriends.
From clinging there half stunned and perfectly inert, he felt a thrillof energy begin to move within him--a thrill which became a spasm as allat once he saw something moving that looked like an animal crawling overthe edge of the cliff about fifty feet diagonally away from where helay.
As the object passed from behind some intervening trees he could seeplainly enough that it was an Indian grasping a bow, and the top of hisquiver could be seen above his shoulder.
Chris was alert now, and grasped the fact that this was another of theenemy making his way down to a big patch of pensile growth which wouldafford him cover, from whence he could direct his arrows either at hiswatcher or at those who had fired upward from the valley.
"Could I?" he asked himself, with the desire for life once morethrobbing strongly in his veins.
He began to prove his position. He had lain clinging with all his mightto that stone ever since he had fallen, in the full belief that if heslackened his hold he would glide off into the depths and fall to thebottom; but as in his calmer frame of mind he began to test this, hefound that loosening his desperate grasp made no difference, that wherehe lay was fairly level, and that he was safe enough so long as he couldretain his nerve.
His left arm ached violently, but there was nothing the matter with hisright, and to his great satisfaction his rifle was beside him, withpouch, pistol, and hunting-knife.
He began to examine his rifle-lock, and found all was right there, andthat by moving a little he could place the stone between himself and hisenemy so that he would not only have a breastwork over which to fire,but a protection to turn aside arrows sent for his destruction.
He turned cautiously aside, for he felt that cunning eyes might bewatching him; but in spite of the caution he could not evade the quickglance of the watching enemy.
Chris grasped the fact, and quick as thought, as his rifle now restedupon the top of the stone, brought the sight to bear upon the Indian.
It was to save his life, he knew, for his enemy was as quick in hismovements as he, with the result that a well-aimed arrow flashed acrossthe intervening distance like a ray of light, which was quenched in thepuff of white smoke which darted from the boy's rifle. Thensimultaneously with the report there was a sharp _click_, and the toughreed-like piece of wood glanced away, diverted from the object at whichit was aimed, while as Chris peered with starting eyes over the top ofthe stone which had saved him from a grievous wound, if not from death,he saw beneath the smoke which floated upwards another of the Indiansrolling over three or four times before descending into the depths belowwith ever-gathering speed.
There was another chorus of yells from overhead, and though he could notsee them, Chris felt assured that the enemy were raging about the top ofthe cliff, seeking to send arrows at him; and he had additional proof ofthis being a fact, for _crack_!--_crack_!--_crack_!--_crack_! fourreports came from below, with what effect he could not tell, but itseemed certain that his friends had fired at the enemy, whose yellingceased, a strange and terrible silence succeeding the cries.
Chris re-loaded his empty barrel and looked sharply in severaldirections, mostly in that from which danger had shown itself, and withthe full intention of firing at the first enemy who tried to reach thespot which commanded his resting-place. But the silence continued, andthere was no sign of a renewed attack.
Then all at once there was a fresh beating of the pony's hoofs frombelow, where everything was hidden. This was followed by a sharpscrambling sound, and again by a tremendous rush as of earth and stonessliding down for awhile before reaching the bottom with a crash.
"My poor nag!" groaned Chris, and in imagination he saw the crushed andbleeding body of the sturdy little steed lying motionless amidst theheap of stones.
The fancy was so horribly vivid that he shivered as if from a cold windpassing over him, while all the time he was bathed with perspiration.
The old dread of slipping from the narrow ledge upon which he lay cameback, and with a terrible feeling of despair he waited for the momentwhen he would again be falling swiftly through the air to share the fateof his mount.
He had just reached this point when, sounding rather faint and distantbut perfectly clear, he heard a familiar voice calling him by name.
But in his state of painful agitation he could make no reply, only liemotionless and ready to ask himself whether he had not conjured up thecall himself.
But it was no fancy! It was his father's voice, sounding as if sentforth with a great effort between hands held on either side of thespeaker's lips.
"Chris! Chris!" And perfectly clearly now a repetition of the words ina husky whisper from somewhere close at hand.
The Indians were above him, he knew, and it was like telling themexactly where he lay; but the boy felt that at all risks he must reply,and bending over a little so as to direct his voice downwards, heshouted--
"Ahoy! Here!"
_Ahoy! Here_!
The softly-whispered echo of the cry, not from close at hand, but fromthe face of the cliff far away.
But there was another and more ominous sound, or rather burst of sounds,at this, for a chorus of savage yells arose from the top of the cliffabove him, and he knew that the Indians must have exposed themselvesonce more, for a couple of shots rang out from far below, raisingstrange echoes from the end of the valley, and once more there was theterrible silence in which Chris crouched hopelessly, for more than evernow he felt the crux in which he was placed--to attempt to move was tofall or expose himself to the arrows waiting for him on the top of thecliff.
The next minute the black cloud of hopelessness seemed to be cut by thevoice which came up out of the depths--the voice that told him hisfriends were watching and waiting--as he felt must be the case--to fireat the first Indian who showed himself above the top of the cliff.
"Chris!" So low and distant, but so clear. "Chris!"
"Ahoy! _Coo-ee_!" shouted the boy downward, and from between his hands.
This time there was no answering yell, and Chris listened to the wordsthat came up, sending a thrill of joy through him, but at the same timea strange tremor of fear.
"Can you hear?" came now.
"Yes."
"Then--listen," came with very slow emphasis. "You--must--creep--gully--lower--self--down."
Chris was silent as he sat staring down as it seemed into nothing butthe clear air, for the stone to which he had clung projected from thecliff-face, just as the parts above him overhung as if about to fall.
"Hear?" came from below.
The single word was so sharp and imperative that the boy replied atonce, shouting the one word, "Can't!" And then, as if ashamed ofhimself for so shrinking a reply, he alluded to one only of the dangerswhich hemmed him in by crying out, "Indians!"
Chris's heart leaped again, and hope grew brighter, for he more fullygrasped his situation from the next words that came, though he hadpretty well understood it before.
"Dare--not--show."
But the words had hardly been uttered before Chris felt that he knewmore than his friends, for his strained and wandering eyes, which shrankfrom gazing down into the awful depths below, suddenly became aware of aslight movement amongst the pensile growth between the summit and thespot from which the Indians had shot at him.
He was in doubt for a few moments, and he held his breath as hecautiously brought his rifle to bear upon the hanging bush. But it didnot
stir, and it seemed evident that he had only imagined the danger.
He had held his breath painfully while he watched, and now, feeling thathe was wrong, and must say something to those below, he breathed againfreely and was about to speak when his heart seemed to stand stillagain, for one swinging bough was slightly agitated and pressed aside,showing the glistening, copper-hued skin of an Indian's shoulder, withthe strap of a quiver-sling plainly in view.
The man was evidently crawling like a short thick serpent to reach aspot from which he could shoot; but it was not to be, for covering theIndian's side the boy waited a full minute to see if a betteropportunity presented itself; and it came, for after lying perfectlystill for awhile the man raised himself a little as if to clearsomething in his way, and then gave a spasmodic jerk, rolled oversidewise, and came gliding out from beneath the hanging growth, to falllike those who had gone before.
"How horrible!" thought Chris with a shudder, as he re-charged thebarrel he had just fired. Then bitterly, "More horrible for poor fatherif it had been Chris Lee."
The excitement of this fresh attempt to reach him roused him to trywhether 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 whichrose 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 ledgefrom which the arrows had come, Chris passed his rifle-sling over hishead and one shoulder, got the piece well over his back, and flatteninghimself down upon his chest, edged himself along to get his head alittle beyond the stone of shelter so that he could look down, when heturned icy with the shiver that ran up his spine. For he was gazingdown a perpendicular portion of the cliff-face to a patch of bushesfully two hundred feet below.
"Oh, it's impossible!" he cried; but as he uttered the words once morethe command came up--
"Try!"
"Ah, he doesn't know," groaned the boy despairingly, as he shrankshivering back to his old position, to lie still for a minute, feelingthe 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 fromthe edge of the shelf over which he had peered, he wrenched his headround to see whether there was any possible ledge or slope on the otherside of the stone where he had looked before and had seen as it werethat it projected right out.
Once more his heart seemed to leap, for as he looked after backing alittle more, he could see that his feet rested on a ledge formed by oneband of the shale projecting about a foot beyond that above, while twoyards or so beyond this ledge was broken sharply away.
What was beyond he could not see, but the ledge was certainly safer thanthe spot he occupied, there being room for him to lie down, and, betterstill, he could see that he would be better screened from any attackmade from the ledge or the clump of bushes, the stone and an angle ofthe cliff being between the ledge and the dangerous foes.
It was a case of its being only the first step that costs. Chris hadbegun to try, and forcing himself backward along the ledge inch by inch,he soon had the satisfaction of feeling that he was more hidden from thedanger of being shot at than he expected, while the cliff-wall at whosefoot he lay completely screened him from above.
There was a hopefulness about this, a feeling of being rewarded for hiseffort to try, which nerved the boy to continue, in spite of thedifficulties attending his backward progress and the way in which hisrifle caught against the wall, and his having to stop again and again toreadjust the holster of his revolver, which kept on slipping round.
"This going backward is horrible," he said to himself at last, as hepaused rather out of breath to look anxiously about him, but felt inbetter heart upon again seeing how thoroughly he was screened from theIndians. The danger was not there, and he had nothing to mind on oneside where the rock-wall went right up, probably to the tableland above,which, for aught he knew to the contrary, might come right to the edgeof the mass of earth and stone. That which he had to fear was thehorrible vacancy on his left, over which, had he cared to, he could havestretched out his hand; but though more than once tempted to do so, heshrank from it with a shudder.
"But I must do something," he thought. "I can't go on backwards likethis."
He waited a little while to let his breath come and go more easily, andwhile he lay there resting upon his chest he thought. He reasoned withhimself in a kind of argument and appeal to his common-sense.
"This natural shelf," he said, "is about a foot wide, and if it wereonly just above the ground I should feel not the slightest nervousness,but be ready to stand up and run along it, instead of creeping back likea worm. Suppose it does go down hundreds of feet, what then? There isjust as much room, and it only wants pluck. If I couldn't run along itI might walk steadily. I will."
But he did not begin. The horror of that great unknown depth was toohard to master; but he raised himself slowly on all fours to see if hecould not turn himself round so as to crawl the rest of the way headfirst instead of feet.
It seemed very simple, but at the first trial his rifle caught tightly,and he was attacked by a sensation as of something thrusting at himhard, so that he closed his eyes and remained for some seconds with hishead projecting over the edge of the shelf before he shuffled himselfback into his former position, and then lay panting till thebreathlessness that had attacked him passed away, leaving a sensation ofanger against himself for his want of firmness.
"Oh, it's cowardly," he muttered fiercely. "I can't go on backwards,and I must and will do it. But how?"
He thought more calmly at last, and it seemed plain enough. All he hadto do, it seemed, was to take fast hold of some projection in the rock,so as to steady himself, and then--
No, that wouldn't do.
"I see," he panted the next minute. "Turn over on my back. But isthere room?"
This required a good deal of anxious thought, for failure meant plungingdown at once into the depths below.
"There must be room enough," he panted, "if I keep on edging myselfclose to this great wall of rock."
He hesitated no longer, but setting his teeth hard and moving by inches,and battling with the hindrances offered by the weapons he carried, hewrenched himself round till he lay flat upon his back, gazing upwardcalmly enough in spite of one terrible half-minute he had passed, whenit seemed to him that his rifle was acting as a lever to thrust himright off.
"But that was only fancy," he said to himself now the danger was past,"and all I have got to do is to take hold tightly of the rock with myright-hand and of some block or projection in this wall with my left,let my legs glide over the edge, and sit up. It only means my legsswinging over the gulf. Then I can get on to my hands and knees and goforward easily enough, while my rifle won't be in the way.
"Only means my legs swinging over the gulf," said Chris again, this timealoud, in a peevish, low voice. "Only! Oh, I can't do it," he groaned,and then breathlessly and without giving himself an opportunity toshrink, he said aloud, "I will."
The next minute he had begun making the effort--seizing the edge of therock and reaching up overhead to feel about till his fingers sank into acrevice, and then, panting heavily, he made one brave effort, holding ontightly and letting his legs glide over, while he stiffly raised himselfup, moving as it were upon a pivot, that pivot being the base of hisspine.
"There," he cried triumphantly, as the result of his effort was that hewas sitting upright on the ledge with his feet in the air, but notswinging, for he pressed his heels hard against the rock beneath him, ashe glanced sidewise to think of how he was to make his next movement.
"Chris! Ahoy! Chris!" came faintly from below, and at the same momentthere was a sharp crack, and the ledge upon which he was sitting gaveway, dropping down with its burden, many feet on either side of himparting clean from the wall of rock, just as if it had been riven off bysome mighty wedge.
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