"Tommy, if you-all don't go back, I'll be no friend of yours after
this day!"

"Well, if you don't go on and shut up that fool talk I don't want to
be friends any longer with any such hen-headed, white-livered--"

"Tom!"

"Well, then, shut up and go on, or I'll call you worse names than
that!"

"You obstinate son of a sea-cook, I tell you I won't go on unless you
go back!"

"Nick, it will take me just about half a minute to get near enough to
push you off. And I'm goin' to do it, too, if you don't hold your
jackass jaw and go on."

There was silence for the space of full twenty seconds while Ellhorn
watched Tuttle edging his way carefully along the narrow shelf. Then
he spoke:

"Well, anyway, Tom, don't you try to take a deep breath or that belly
of yours will tip the mountain over and make it mash somebody on the
other side!" Then he turned his head and shuffled along toward the top
of the cliff.

The shelf widened again presently and they found the rest of it
comparatively easy traveling. At one place there were some drops of
dried blood on the ledge and in another a bloody stain on the wall at
about the height of a man's shoulders. This confirmed their belief
that Haney and Jim had found and climbed this narrow ledge with the
meat and camp supplies on their backs. When they reached the top Nick
held out his hand and said:

"Say, old man, I reckon we-all didn't mean anything we said back
there."

Tom took the proffered hand and held it a moment:

"No, I guess not. I sure reckon Emerson would say we didn't. Nick,
what made you get that fool notion in your head that I didn't have
sand to get through?"

"I didn't think you didn't have sand, Tommy. I thought--the trail was
so narrow, I thought you'd tumble off." A broad grin sent the curling
ends of his mustache up toward his eyes and he went on: "Tom, you sure
looked plumb ridiculous!"

Shaking hands again, they turned to their work. They stood on the
steep, sloping side of the mountain, which was cracked and seamed with
a network of chasms and gulches. A ridge ran slantingly down the
mountain and the intricate, irregular network of narrow, steep-sided
cracks and gulches which filled the slope finally gave, on the right
hand, into the deep, gaping canyon which had been their thoroughfare,
and on their left into another, apparently similar, some distance to
the south. Farther up, toward the backbone of the ridge, there seemed
to be a narrow stretch,