A CLIMB FOR LIFE.

Jack strolled along at the foot of the cliffs, anxiously scanning every inch of them in the hope of spying some place that afforded an opportunity to climb upward. The cliffs varied in height from two hundred to three, and even four hundred feet. Great beetling crags of gray stone, too steep to afford roothold to more than a few scanty shrubs, filled him with oppression and gloom.

The boy felt this disheartening influence as he made his way along the edges of the valley. From time to time he sighted game—deer, rabbits and a good many quail; but as he had not brought their solitary firearm along he did not pay much attention to the animals.

At last he halted at the foot of a cliff that was less precipitous than the others. It had, in fact, a slight slope to it, and was more closely grown with bushes and small trees which might be grasped by any one attempting to climb it.

Jack had his knife with him, a heavy–bladed, business–like bit of cutlery of finely tempered steel, but strong and thick withal. He drew it out, opened the blade and began hacking at the cliff’s face. It was of a soft sort of stone, and he could easily cut depressions in it.

“Good,” murmured the boy, “I actually believe that I may be able to scale this cliff, although it may take a long time.”

He gauged its height carefully and estimated that from the floor of the valley to the summit of the precipice it must be fully three hundred feet.

“If the situation was not so desperate I would never dream of attempting to climb that awful height,” mused the boy, “but necessity often drives where courage would falter.”

So thinking, he cast off his coat, laid it on the ground and his hat beside it. Then he clambered over the pile of stones that lay at the foot of the cliff and began his climb. For the first forty feet or so his task was not so difficult. But it was hot, and the perspiration began to run off the laboring lad in streams.

He paused to rest. Jack was now, as has been said, about two score feet from the floor of the valley. Up to this point the cliff had sloped at quite an angle; but now it reared itself upward in a seemingly impassable escarpment, like the wall of a giant’s castle.

“Now for the real tug–of–war,” thought Jack, when he had rested.

Tightening his belt, he braced himself for what he knew would be a desperately dangerous climb. First he dug out holes to fit his hands and then began working his way up. From time to time he was able to grasp bushes and stunted trees, and these helped him greatly in his task. When he reached even the narrowest ledge he laid down to rest, extending himself at full length and panting like a spent hound.

Owing to the soft nature of the rock, however, he progressed rather better than he had anticipated. But it was slow work. From time to time the face of the cliff was so precipitous that he was compelled to make a detour to find an easier place to cut his steps.

Once he looked down; but he did not repeat the experiment. The sight of the dizzy height, to which he clung like some crawling insect, almost unnerved him. For several minutes, with a palpitating heart and a sickened feeling at the pit of his stomach, he hugged the rock, not daring to look either up or down.

But at last his courage came back and he began his painful progress upward once more. Foot by foot he climbed, and at last, when resting on a ledge, he dared to look about him to see what progress he had made. To his delight he saw that he had come more than halfway up the precipice, although above him its rugged face still towered frowningly as if daring him to surmount it.

“Well, I would never have believed that I could have climbed to such a height with so little inconvenience,” mused the boy. “Of course, the climb is a good deal rougher than it looks from below; but still it’s an experience I wouldn’t go through again for hundreds of dollars.”

Having rested on the ledge and munched some deer meat and acorn flap–jack which he had brought with him, Jack recommenced his climb. It spoke marvels for his cool head, great strength and wonderful endurance that the boy had progressed as far as he had. Few but an American youth of the most steel–like fiber and sterling grit would have dared to undertake such a task. And yet, before Jack there still lay the hardest part of his endeavor.

So steep was the cliff face now that the lad did not dare to pause in his climb. He steadily progressed although his hands were cut and bleeding by this time, and his feet ached as cruelly as did other parts of his anatomy. But just when it seemed to the lad that his body could not stand another fraction of an ounce of strain, he happened on a place where a watercourse from above had cut a sort of shallow cleft in the precipice. In this grew shrubs and several trees, and Jack struggled to gain this oasis in the dangerous desert of his climb for life.

Gaining it, he flung himself at full length on a bed of sweet smelling yellow flowers under the shade of a broad–leaved bay tree. In the stillness of that lonely and awful height, halfway between earth and sky, his breathing sounded as loud as the exhaust of a steam engine. But by–and–by he recovered his breath, and began to wish with all his soul for some water.

That fearful climb had racked both nerve and muscle; but even more than his fatigue did Jack feel the cruel pangs of a burning thirst. Some grass grew in that lonely little grove on the cliff face, and he chewed some of this for the sake of the moisture that exuded from it. But this was far from satisfying. In fact, it only aggravated his thirst by mocking it.

He rose on one elbow and looked about him. At a short distance up the steep, dry watercourse he saw a patch of vivid green. To his mind that could betoken nothing but the presence of water near the surface. At any rate he felt that it was worth investigating.

Reaching the patch of verdure, the boy fell on his hands and knees, and with a sharp–edged stone began scraping away at the ground. To his unspeakable delight he had not dug down more than a few inches before the ground began to grow moist.

Greatly encouraged, he dug away with his improvised tool with renewed vigor. He excavated quite a hole, and then lay down in the shade waiting for it to fill up. Before long a few inches of warm, muddy–colored liquid could be discerned at the bottom of the hole. It did not look inviting, this coffee–colored, tepid mixture, but Jack was not in the mood to be fastidious.

Casting himself down on his stomach, he plunged his face into the water, sucking it greedily in. Then he bathed his hands and face. He was still engaged in this last occupation when his attention was distracted by a low growl from below him.

The boy looked up quickly, and then almost toppled over backward with astonishment.

Facing him, and lashing its stubby tail angrily, was a large bob–cat. The creature had its wicked–looking teeth bared, and the boy could see its sharp claws. How it came to be in that place he could not imagine. But its emaciated condition seemed to indicate that it must have in some way fallen from the cliff above.

Evidently it was half mad from deprivation of food and water, for under ordinary conditions a bob–cat—although a really dangerous foe if cornered—will not attack a human being without provocation.

The wild beast’s object was, evidently, to get at the water hole which Jack had so painstakingly scooped out. The boy would have been willing enough to allow it to accomplish its purpose. But evidently the half famished creature regarded him as an enemy to be dispatched before it proceeded to slake its thirst.

It crouched down till its fawn–colored belly touched the ground and then, uttering a snarling sort of cry, it launched its body through the air at the boy.

So strong was its leap that tempered steel springs could not have hurled its body forward with more velocity. Jack uttered an involuntary cry of alarm. Above him was the steep cliff, while to move even a short distance in either direction from the dry watercourse would mean a death plunge to the valley below.