Once I stepped off a little ledge five or six feet--nothing worse than a barked shin.

And all the while the rain, pelting us unmercifully, searched out what poor little remnants of dryness we had been able to retain.
At last we opened out the gleam of fire in our cave, and a minute later were engaged in struggling desperately up the slant that brought us to our ledge and the slope on which our fire burned.
"My Lord!" panted Windy Bill, "a man had ought to have hooks on his eyebrows to climb up here!" We renewed the fire--and blessed the back-load of mesquite we had packed up earlier in the evening.

Our blankets we wrapped around our shoulders, our feet we hung over the ledge toward the blaze, our backs we leaned against the hollow slant of the cave's wall.

We were not uncomfortable.

The beat of the rain sprang up in the darkness, growing louder and louder, like horsemen passing on a hard road.