He finally reached the narrow ledge at the foot of Fat Man’s Misery, and peered cautiously over it, straight down below. The top of the green spire of the fir rose up to meet him. Nearly a hundred feet down, it looked mighty inviting, for that way led to freedom and a reunion with his party. But a _very_ brief climb down the ledges served to show the utter futility of any descent that way, for soon he came to a ledge where in going up he had swung out into space as if clambering over a house cornice. Without eyes in his feet, no man could find a safe spot to plant them _under_ that ledge! But it gave him one advantage, for lying on the ledge he could look over and see the whole floor of the canyon below. The first thing his eyes fixed on was the top of his picket peg. The glint of iron came up from its ring,--but there was nothing attached to it, save a short piece of frayed lariat. Pinto was gone! Sid stared for some time, disbelieving his eyes and craning his neck so that he nearly lost his balance trying to spy out the horse somewhere up or down the canyon. But all was silent and serene, down there; not a sound but the eternal swish of the wind through the trees and the occasional chirrup of small birds. “Gee-_roo_!” he cried at length. “The darned pinhead! I suppose he got frightened and broke his halter, once he realized he was alone in the canyon. I’ve seen a horse drag an iron disk plow clear across a field in the unreasoning terror of being alone.--Gorry--but this is developing into a _regular_ adventure!” Plenty of the dangerous part of it was all around him, now, he realized, as he turned to climb up to the cleft again. More than once he cursed his temerity for exposing himself to fresh risks, just to have a closer look down into the canyon where lay his longed-for freedom,--and more than once he had to beat back the whimpering cave man in him who persisted in trying to break out with slobberings and tears! But he negotiated the cleft again, and was soon back in the walled confines of Lost Canyon. “Now for the spruce!” he ejaculated to himself, cheerily. “It’s up to this _hombre_ to make good all by his lonesome--just as he started this, all by his lonesome!” But his heart sank as he began clearing away the underbrush around it and gathered the wood for a fire. That spruce was all of two feet thick! It towered a hundred feet up into the canyon, yet its topmost spire was not half the distance to the upper rim. Sighting it from across the canyon, Sid judged that it would fall with its top some distance below the beginnings of that huge granite slab over which was the Black Panther’s route, but still, it _could_ be reached from ledges up there and he was ready to dare anything to get out. But then that frightful climb up that crack in its surface would begin!