Hour after hour passed in this way, and, finally, just as the sun was rising, Archie, faint with thirst, aching in every joint, and bleeding from numerous wounds, stepped upon a broad, flat bowlder, which formed the summit of the cliff.
On his right, between him and a huge rock that rose for fifty feet without a single break or crevice, was a narrow but deep chasm which ran down the cliff he had just ascended, and into which he had more than once been in imminent danger of falling as he stumbled about in the darkness.

Far below him was the glade, a thin wreath of smoke rising from the smouldering camp-fire, and on his left was the gorge, a hundred times more frightful in his eyes now than it had ever seemed before.

In front of him the mountain sloped gently down to the valley below, its base clothed with a thick wood, which at that height looked like an unbroken mass of green sward, and beyond that, so far away that it could be but dimly seen, was a broad expanse of prairie, from which arose the whitewashed walls of his uncle's rancho.

It was a view that would have put an artist into ecstasies, but the fugitive was in no mood to appreciate it.

He had no eye for the beauties of nature then--he had other things to think of; and he regarded the picturesque mountains and rocks, and the luxuriant woods, as so many grim monsters that stood between him and his home.
But Archie could not remain long inactive.