They were then in the narrowest place they had found, and it was only by flattening their bodies against the rock and clinging with all the strength in their fingers to the little knobs and crevices which roughened the wall that they could keep their footing. Nick, standing flat against the precipice with a hand stretched out on each side, looked over his shoulder at Tom, who was a few feet in the rear. He also was facing the wall, clinging with both hands and shuffling his feet along sidewise, a few inches at each step. Beyond, the ledge rose in a gradual incline to the top of the cliff, perhaps six hundred feet farther on. Below, the wall dropped abruptly a hundred feet to the boulder covered floor of the canyon. "Tommy," said Nick, "you-all better go back. It ain't safe for a man of your size." "Go back! Not much!" "Well, I shan't go any farther until you do!" "Then you'll have to hang on by your eyelids till I get past you!" "Tom, don't be a fool!" "Don't you, neither." "Tom, you're the darnedest obstinate cuss I ever saw in my life. You'll tip over backwards first thing you know." "Nick, if Emerson was here it would sure be his judgment that we-all can get to the top of this cliff. So you shut up and go on." "I tell you I won't do it till you go back! Darn your skin, I wouldn't be as pig-headed as you are for a hundred dollars a minute!" "Well, I wouldn't be as big a fool as you are for a thousand!" "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: