"I want to know---I want to know before I take another step."

"Well, what do you want to know?" demanded Tad.

"If it's all this trouble to climb down, I want to know how in the name
of Bright Angel Trail we're ever going to be able to climb up again!"

"Fall up, of course," flung back the guide. "You said this was
mountain climbing backwards. It'll be that way going back," chuckled
the guide.

"And I so delicate!" muttered the lad, gazing up the hundreds of feet
of almost sheer precipice. But ere the Pony Rider Boys scaled those
rocks again they would pass through some experiences that were far from
pleasurable ones.




CHAPTER IX

CHUNKY WANTS TO GO HOME


Instead of a half hour, as had been prophesied, a full hour elapsed
before they reached the bottom of the trail that was practically no trail
at all. Tad was sure that the guide couldn't find his way back over the
same ground, or rather rock, to save his life, for the boy could find
nothing that looked as if the foot of man had ever trodden upon it
before. He doubted if any one had been over that particular trail from