"Now, get hold here, fellows, and give a pull!" said Allan; "hold on, not so rough about it, Giraffe, or you'll rub his face against the rocks and make it worse than if he'd let go, and dropped down. Here he comes, boys!"
"Heave ho!" sang out the scouts, and foot by foot they drew the unlucky acrobat once more to the surface.
"Got off pretty slick that time, eh, Davy?" demanded Step Hen, after the other had been landed, and Bob White was coiling the rope around himself again.
"Never knew me to miss doin' that, did you, Step Hen?" queried the other; and from the flippant tone in which he said this it was plainly evident that the lesson had been lost on him; and that Davy would be doing his customary stunts right along.
The hike was presently resumed, and the little adventure reckoned a thing of the past. Shortly afterwards they came suddenly on a man, with an old vehicle, and a slab-sided horse that looked half starved. The ramshackle wagon bed was covered to about the depth of three feet with poor looking straw, that seemed to have done duty a long time.
As for the man himself, he was a typical mountaineer, thin and scrawny, with a small, weasened face, and keen, snapping eyes. Bob White instantly pulled his hat down over his face as he saw the man.
Thad noticed that the other looked alarmed at sight of these eight khaki-clad boys strung out along the mountain road. Indeed, he had the appearance of a man who would have turned and fled, only that he was afraid to do so after finding himself face to face with what looked like a squad of United States regulars, or at the least, North Carolina militia, on the hike.
He returned the greetings of the boys with sundry nods of his head, and urged his old nag along by several whacks from the hickory rod he held in his hand in lieu of a whip. So ramshackle vehicle and scared driver vanished around the bend which had concealed the scouts from his view until it was too late to run.
"Looked like he'd seen a ghost!" suggested Step Hen, with a chuckle.
"Well, you can't blame him, if he saw you roll your eyes, and make that face of yours look like thirty cents," remarked Bumpus, cuttingly.