The experiment was tried next day. A bucket, loaded with stones heavy
enough to sink it, was lowered down the black-looking pit, and was drawn
up again nearly full of water. This was given to the nearest grazing
animals, and the bucket sent down again, to catch against some
projecting block and tilt out the ballast, after which it refused to
sink, but made a jerk or two to escape, and then had to be drawn out.
Fresh stones were put in the bottom, and again were tilted out, but the
result of another trial from a little different spot resulted in the
vessel's coming up full.
More trying resulted in the adventurers finding that they could depend
upon obtaining about five bucketfuls out of a dozen trials, and with
this they were content.
An attempt to reach the first terrace was now made, and this did not
prove to be so difficult as it appeared from below, Chris finding a spot
where the rock-face was a good deal broken away and proposing to try and
climb it.
The doctor hesitated.
"What about the snakes?" he said.
Chris started, looked up, and then looked down, to see that Ned's eyes
were fixed upon him, and he turned red.
"A snake couldn't climb up there!" he said sharply.
"No," said his father, "I should doubt whether one could; but there is
every probability that one or many might have come down from above."
"Bother!" exclaimed the boy, and he hesitated for a few moments before
saying, "If one did fall, or come creeping down one of those great
cracks, perhaps, it wouldn't stop there. Snakes want something to eat,
and there doesn't seem to be anything to live on up there. Wouldn't it
come down lower, after all?"
"Possibly," said the doctor, laughing. "You want to venture?"
"Yes, father."
"Very well, go. But take a good stick with you--say such a piece of
sapling as Griggs carried, only much shorter, and use it well as you
go."
Chris nodded, and without asking the American, hurried off to cut such a
piece as he required, ending by trimming it well and leaving quite a
small bush-like tuft of green at the end.
"You mean to go, then?" said Ned quietly.
"Yes. Will you come with me?"
"No," said Ned, wincing. "I hate snakes."
"Not half so much as I do."
"Yes, I will. I'll come too."
"Like to go first?" asked Chris mischievously.
"N-yes, give me the stick. I can climb up there as easily as you can.
Well, why don't you give me the stick?"
"'Cause I want it myself, lad. No, thank you; I'm going to have the
honour of sweeping down all the rattlers as I go up. You'd better stand
back out of the way, in case I should send a big one down. You can
shoot it then."
"Some one else will have to do that," said Ned, in an off-hand way, to
hide his nervousness. "I shall be close behind you."
"Then you mean to come?"
"Of course."
"That's right, old chap. I say, Ned, I don't believe there'll be any,
after all."
"Think not?"