"Seems to me you do your share of biting, George; you've always got some ill-natured remark to make about everything I invent. Nothing venture, nothing gained, is my motto. And now I'll walk a little further out on this limb, so as to get a better chance to jump; and then watch me sail like a thistle-down!"
"Careful, there, Toby!" shouted Elmer, as the scout up in the tree started to move out further, looking very queer with that canopy over his head, and his waving arms assisting him to keep his balance.
Hardly had the scout master given this warning than what he possibly anticipated happened. There was an ominous crack, and the rotten limb started to drop earthward. So did Toby, though the parachute caught the air, and sustained his weight pretty fairly. How it would have been had he been thousands of feet up, instead of a paltry thirty-five, was a question that could not be answered.
The four boys saw the limb come crashing down, to break into fragments when it landed. Strange to say the ring-tailed animal that had accompanied the rotten limb in its sudden descent did not appear to have suffered any material damage from the drop; because it was seen to run away as soon as the termination of the unexpected aerial voyage had been reached.
As for Toby, he was certainly falling, but buoyed up by that stout material extended in the shape of a parachute, his descent was not nearly so rapid as it must otherwise have been.
He struck the ground with a resounding thump, and then fell over in a heap; though from the scrambling that ensued the others knew he could not have been hurt very much.
"How'd she go, Toby?" demanded Chatz, hurrying forward to assist the daring air navigator, if it turned out he needed any help.
"Kinder hard slap it gave me when I hit terra firma," replied the other, whose lip was bleeding a little, showing that he must have bitten it; "but all that's going to be remedied easy enough. What she needs is a little more canvas; ain't a big enough sail yet to hold me up. But whee! who'd ever expect that limb to snap off as sudden as that? See what it means to be prepared, fellows? Scouts ain't the only ones that ought to do that same; for if anybody ever needed to be ready, the air pilot does. He never knows what's going to happen to him next."
"Well," the scout master remarked, "let's hope that's plenty for you to-day, Toby. We've stood and watched you make a record drop, and you came through in pretty decent shape; but enough's as good as a feast. The next time things mightn't turn out as nice for you; and we don't want to carry a scout with a broken leg home in our wagon to-day."
"But think of that little 'coon coming down with it all, and then running away as if he didn't have a scratch to show for it?" George observed.