"Yes; we'll use them if we meet any four-footed enemies. Strike another match, please."
Sam did so at once. Instantly something happened. As the match flared up, blinding them for the moment, Sam leaped into the air.
"Wow!" he howled. "Look ou——"
Dan uttered an exclamation before Sam had finished the sentence. Something had given him a violent push from behind. At the same instant Dan Davis was served in a similar manner. Instead of jumping, however, he whirled with the intention of grappling with his assailant, whoever he might be.
Another push sent him reeling backward. He grasped wildly for something to check his fall, but his hands slipped along the smooth rock.
"I must be going all of a mile a minute," thought the boy. "Poor Sam. Poor——"
Suddenly he felt his body leave the sloping rock and shoot into space. Then all at once everything became a blank.
Dan landed heavily and lay still, but in a few minutes he began to struggle with himself, fighting off an almost irresistible inclination to lie back and go to sleep again. A few minutes of this and he sat up.
"Oh, Sam! Hello, Sam!" he shouted.
"Hello yourself," answered a voice so close to Dan that he could not repress a start.