It's a big cave, but it has such a steep floor that I'm not sure as we could stay in it; and it's back the other side of that ridge." "I don't know how the ridge is to get back over--it was slippery enough coming this way--and the cave may shoot us out into space, but I'd like to LOOK at a dry place anyway," replied the Cattleman.
We all felt the same about it, so back over the ridge we went.

About half way down the other side Uncle Jim turned sharp to the right, and as the "hog back" dropped behind us, we found ourselves out on the steep side of a mountain, the perpendicular cliff over us to the right, the river roaring savagely far down below our left, and sheets of water glazing the footing we could find among the boulders and debris.
Hardly could the ponies keep from slipping sideways on the slope, as we proceeded farther and farther from the solidity of the ridge behind us, we experienced the illusion of venturing out on a tight rope over abysses of space.

Even the feeling of danger was only an illusion, however, composite of the falling rain, the deepening twilight, and the night that had already enveloped the plunge of the canon below.
Finally Uncle Jim stopped just within the drip from the cliffs.
"Here she is," said he.
We descended eagerly.

A deer bounded away from the base of the buttes.
The cave ran steep, in the manner of an inclined tunnel, far up into the dimness.

We had to dig our toes in and scramble to make way up it at all, but we found it dry, and after a little search discovered a foot-ledge of earth sufficiently broad for a seat.
"That's all right," quoth Jed Parker.