"What is the meaning of this?" asked Waring, pointing at his costume.
"A stroke of my genius," replied the New Englander; "considered as an idea original with myself, I think it reflects credit upon me."
"But let us hear the particulars of your escape."
"They don't amount to much," said Hezekiah. "The p'int is just here. You know I had an all-fired row on that precipice. Drat me, if that wan't the greatest scrape I ever got into in all my life. I dug, and kicked, and pulled, and twisted, and gouged, and bit, and rolled with that last Injun, but it wan't no use. When he went over, I had to go over, too. Well, there! it was sublime, spinning down through the dizzy air with that Shawanoe fast to me! I had more ecstacy in them one or two seconds, then I've had in all the rest of my life.
"As it happened, the Injin fell under me, and was knocked into a jelly, though, for that matter, I had settled his hash for him before he went over. I'd advise you to believe now that I was bruised slightly, and for a few minutes I seen nothing but stars, and heard nothing but the queerest kind of music in my head.
"When I came to myself somebody was drawing me along the ground. Thinking as how it must be one of the dratted imps, I just kept my eyes shet, and let him pull away. Bimeby he let me drap, and piled me over with dirt and stones. I heard him mutter something, but I kept my eyes closed up all the time; he never thought I was playing possum.
"Arter he'd been gone some time, it struck me all at once that that had been you who had taken sich pains with me. You'd better believe I opened my eyes then, and crawled out of that place in a hurry. The way the stones and dirt flew, you'd have thought a barrel of powder had been tetched off.
"But you'd been gone too long fur me to find you, though I tried hard enough to do it. I follered you a good ways into the woods, and had to give it up at last. I leaned up agin a tree, and was thinking about it——"
"That was you, then, Pat and I saw, and he wanted to shoot so bad. You had a narrow escape."
"I s'pose it was me. I soon found the redskins was too thick in them parts, so I crept down by the river, and waited fur night. Some time after dark, I heerd one of the scamps screech, followed by the crack of their rifles. I knowed you must be in some scrape, so I hurried down the river, but couldn't see anything of you. Walking down the bank some minutes arter, I thought I heard somebody speak on the river, so I kept going down the shore, and listenin' like.