Turning back, the old man walked along the trail, calling Snap by name from time to time, the answer getting plainer as he advanced, but still proceeding apparently from somewhere under their feet.
'Here he is,' remarked Wharton at last, 'and a pretty dark hole it is, too. Are you hurt any, Snap?' he inquired, leaning over a log and looking down on the other side.
'No, I'm all right,' said the voice, 'but I can't get out.'
'Lay hold of that,' replied Wharton, lowering the rope, 'and we'll pretty soon haul you out.'
When the Winthrops came up this was what met their gaze. The whole floor of the forest was composed of fallen trees and dead logs, in most cases overgrown with moss and bushes, which in their turn had been burnt or scorched. For centuries the trees had grown and fallen, rotted or refused to rot, and over them the fresh forest had grown, until in many cases they formed a solid soil of rotted wood and debris. Here and there, however, where a few great trees had fallen and had not yet rotted, a thin crust, as it were, of boughs and soil and debris had formed above, and through such a crust as this Snap had tumbled into what Towzer called the basement of the forest, a dark, damp, underground hollow, in which in places you could travel upright for thirty or forty yards under a bridge of fallen timber. Out of a place of this kind Snap was hauled, very black and grimy, and as hoarse as a crow with shouting, but otherwise unhurt.
'We had better push on at once,' said Wharton as soon as he was sure that his friend was unhurt. 'I don't like the look of the evening a bit, and should be thankful if we could get under the lee of some big boulders I know of, a few miles further on, before the storm breaks.'
'It does look bad, doesn't it?' said Frank; 'however, a little rain would do no harm, as we shall not strike water to-night, and we all want a wash badly, specially Snap.'
'If this storm catches us in the brûlé, we shan't want washing any more,' was Dick's gloomy reply; and, though the sky—covered with long fleecy storm-clouds, and full of an angry yellow light—did not look reassuring, the boys all thought that for once Dick was taking an unnecessarily black view of their chances.
The boys were still digesting Dick's last speech when there came a tiny whisper through the trees. It was not anything more. Just a faint little wind like a sigh; and yet three or four great trees, which had kept their balance for years, came down before it with a crash which made even Dick's cheek blanch.
'Caught, by thunder!' cried he. 'Boys, we've only one chance; leave them ponies and follow me.'