ot he occupied, there being room for him to lie down, and, better
still, he could see that he would be better screened from any attack
made from the ledge or the clump of bushes, the stone and an angle of
the cliff being between the ledge and the dangerous foes.

It was a case of its being only the first step that costs. Chris had
begun 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 the
danger of being shot at than he expected, while the cliff-wall at whose
foot he lay completely screened him from above.

There was a hopefulness about this, a feeling of being rewarded for his
effort to try, which nerved the boy to continue, in spite of the
difficulties attending his backward progress and the way in which his
rifle caught against the wall, and his having to stop again and again to
readjust the holster of his revolver, which kept on slipping round.

"This going backward is horrible," he said to himself at last, as he
paused rather out of breath to look anxiously about him, but felt in
better heart upon again seeing how thoroughly he was screened from the
Indians. The danger was not there, and he had nothing to mind on one
side 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 edge
of the mass of earth and stone. That which he had to fear was the
horrible vacancy on his left, over which, had he cared to, he could have
stretched out his hand; but though more than once tempted to do so, he
shrank from it with a shudder.

"But I must do something," he thought. "I can't go on backwards like
this."

He waited a little while to let his breath come and go more easily, and
while he lay there resting upon his chest he thought. He reasoned with
himself in a kind of argument and appeal to his common-sense.

"This natural shelf," he said, "is about a foot wide, and if it were
only 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 like
a worm. Suppose it does go down hundreds of feet, what then? There is
just as much room, and it only wants pluck. If I couldn't run along it
I might walk steadily. I will."

But he did not begin. The horror of that great unknown depth was too
hard to master; but he raised himself slowly on all fours to see if he
could not turn himself