At best they could only creep, feeling a way blindly from crag to crag, clinging desperately to every projection, never venturing even the slightest movement until either hand or loot found solid support.  Moore led, his boyish recklessness and knowledge of the way, giving him an advantage.  Westcott followed, keeping as close as possible, endeavouring to shape his own efforts in accordance with the dimly outlined form below; while Brennan, short-legged and stout, probably had the hardest task of all in bringing up the rear.

No one spoke, except as occasionally Moore sent back a brief whisper of warning at some spot of unusual danger, but they could hear each other’s laboured breathing, the brushing of their clothing against the surface of the rock, the scraping of their feet, and occasionally the faint tinkle of a small stone, dislodged by their passage and striking far below.  There was nothing but intense blackness down there—­a hideous chasm of death clutching at them; the houses, the men, the whole valley was completely swallowed in the night.

Above it all they clung to the almost smooth face of the cliff, gripping for support at every crevice, the rock under them barely wide enough to yield purchase to their feet.  Twice Westcott had to let go entirely, trusting to a ledge below to stop his fail; once he travelled a yard, or more, dangling on his hands over the abyss, his feet feeling for the support beyond; and several times he paused to assist the shorter-legged marshal down to a lower level.  Their progress was that of the snail, yet every inch of the way they played with death.

Now and then voices shouted out of the gloom beneath them, and they hung motionless to listen.  The speech was Spanish garnished with oaths, its meaning not altogether clear.  They could distinguish Mendez’s harsh croak easily among the others.

“What’s he saying, Moore?” whispered Westcott to the black shape just below.

“Something ’bout the log.  I don’t just make it, but I reckon they aim now to batter in the winder.”

“Well, go on,” passed down the marshal gruffly.  “What in Sam Hill are yer holdin’ us up yere for?  I ain’t got more’n two inches ter stand on.”

Fifty feet below, just as Moore rounded the dead cedar, the guns began again, the spits of red flame lighting up the outlines of the cabin, and the dark figures of men.  It was as though they looked down into the pit, watching the brewing of some sport of demons—­the movements below them weird, grotesque—­rendered horrible by those sudden glares of light.  This firing was all from without, and was unanswered; no boom of shotgun replied, no muffled crack of revolver.  Yet it must have been for a purpose, for the men crouching against the cliff, their faces showing ghastly in the flashes of powder, were able to perceive a massing of figures below.  Then the shots ceased, and the butt of the great log crashed against something with the force of a catapult, and a yell rolled up through the night.