CHAPTER XVII.
THE STRUGGLE ON THE CLIFF.
As we have before remarked, the place in which the Rancheros had made their camp was a natural recess in the mountains.

It was surrounded on three sides by rocky cliffs, the tops of which seemed to pierce the clouds, and whose sides were so steep that a goat could scarcely have found footing thereon.

In front of the glade was the gorge, the sight of which had so terrified Arthur Vane, and which was so deep that the roar of the mountain torrent, that ran through it, could be but faintly heard by one standing on the cliffs above.
There were three ways to get out of the glade: one was by the narrow ledge of rocks by which the Rancheros and their captives had entered it in the morning; another was by a path on the opposite side of the glade, which also ran along the very brink of the precipice; the third was by climbing up the cliffs to the dizzy heights above.

These avenues of escape were all more or less dangerous, and one unaccustomed to traveling in the mountains would have been at a loss to decide which to take.

Indeed, a very timid boy would have preferred to remain a prisoner among the Rancheros, as long as he was sure of kind treatment and plenty to eat, rather than risk any of them.