It was a rather difficult task to reach the shore, for their wet clothing hampered them sadly and they were greatly fatigued. At last their feet encountered solid ground. Like two drowned creatures they dragged themselves up the bank of the pool beneath the fall and spread themselves panting, on the grass, incapable for the moment of either thought or speech.
“Woof!” panted Percy Simmons at length, gazing back and upward at the fall, “do you mean to say that we came down that and are still alive?”
“So it seems. It’s a good thing we didn’t know of the existence of that waterfall before we built the raft.”
“How’s that?”
“Because in that case we would never have had the nerve to use it.”
“Cantering cascades, I guess you are right! That was the wildest ride I ever took in my life.”
“And the wildest you are ever likely to, I reckon.”
“Let’s hope so, anyhow. Hammering hummingbirds, what a drop!”
Both boys gazed at the fall, which thundered and boomed its white waters from a height that appeared to be fully fifty feet above where they lay, although in all probability the drop was not half that altitude.