connections.

At last they all stood together at the top of the roughly-stepped
sloping shaft by which they had ascended, to find that the roof here was
entirely broken away by the falling of a portion of the cliff; but they
found also what they sought, for there, about a score of feet above
their heads, was the evident continuation of the shaft-like hole by
which they had come up.

"Look," cried Griggs triumphantly; "no wonder we could not find it."

"But how are we to use it?" said Bourne.

"Oh, we can manage that, sir; eh, boys?"

"You might," said the doctor, gazing up, "but I'm sure I couldn't."

"Oh yes, you could, sir, when one of us has been up and driven a peg
here and a peg there into some of those cracks. The stones are quite in
layers; and after that we'll drive a very strong one in, and tie a
lariat to it to hang down like a balustrade to steady whoever goes up."

"But where are the pegs?"

"Down below, sir, growing in amongst those trees. I vote we go down,
have some dinner, and come up again after I have chopped as many pegs as
I think we shall want. I should bring the axe up here too, so as to
drive them in. Why, Chris, lad, we could make a regular ladder up
there."

Griggs' proposal was adopted, and that same afternoon found them in the
same place, with the American ready for action, and the boys carrying
rope and pegs.

And now what had seemed difficult before had grown easy, the American,
who had cut plenty of tough short pieces of pine and formed them
chisel-ended, driving one in between the natural faults in the stone
with the head of the axe, and then climbing upon it to drive in another,
which formed a standing-place in turn, the slope upward of the cliff
making the task easy--so easy, in fact, that less than half-an-hour
sufficed to bring him to the spot where the shaft was in fair
preservation, with its projecting pieces of stone left by the original
carvers of the way.

Here the American fixed the strong peg pitched up to him by Chris, who
had followed him up step by step, and after tying to it one end of the
lariat thrown up by Ned, the two workers made their way up to the intact
shaft, and reached the first cell of the next row, some fifty feet above
the other, gaining at the same time a better view of the terrace in
front, and seeing that it was comparatively very little broken-down,
merely worn by the weather.

"Here, let's go on a little way," cried Chris eagerly.

"No