CHAPTER VIII
WHAT JACK FOUND IN THE RAVINE
Jack Sheldon uttered a startled cry as he found himself darting through space and then he struck on his back and went sliding down the bank toward the creek below unable to stop himself.
Many thoughts passed rapidly through his mind as he went on down the bank, narrowly missing great rocks, stumps of fallen trees and clumps of thorn bushes, feeling no pain but wondering where he would land.
What occurred to him with the most startling distinctness, however, was the fact that he had not lost his footing through his own carelessness but that some one had pushed him from the bank.
Speculation as to who this person might be seemed absolutely useless for he had not seen him and had not known of his presence until the very instant before he had fallen.
What might eventually happen to him did not occupy his thoughts so much as the identity of this person and it seemed as if he must have turned this thought over in his mind a thousand times during his descent of the bank.
His progress was so rapid that he could tell nothing of the objects he passed nor how long he was in descending, the only thing that was definite being the fact that the creek lay below and he might or might not be thrown into it.
At last when it seemed as if he must have slid a thousand feet or more, although it was much less than that distance, he was suddenly brought up sharply by his feet striking a great mass of moss, decayed wood and rich loam at the foot of a short stump almost on the brink of the roaring creek tumbling over the rocks in its bed.