They stopped and stared at each other in dismay.
“Know where we went wrong, Mas’ Don?” said Jem.
“No; do you?”
“Not I, my lad. Think it must ha’ been where I had that last slip into the black hasty pudding.”
“What shall we do, Jem? If we go back we shall lose an hour.”
“Yes! Quite that; and ’tarn’t no good to climb up here. I could do it; but it’s waste o’ time.”
“Could we get down here?”
“Oh, yes,” said Jem drily; “we could get down easy enough; only the thing is, how should we be when we did get down?”
“You mean we should fall to the bottom?”
“Well, you see, Mas’ Don,” said Jem, rubbing one ear as he peered down; “it wouldn’t be a clean fall, ’cause we should scrittle and scruttle from bush to bush, and ketch here and snatch there. We should go right down to the bottom, sure enough, but we might be broke by the time we got there.”