"I wish it wasn't so black," whispered Jack, who was riding a little in advance. "I can't see a thing ahead. I wonder if—— Oh!"
His pony had suddenly given a wild leap backward, missed its footing, and slid down some sort of a steep bank.
"Jumping gee whilkers, what in blazes!" began Pete, when in just the same way he went sliding forward into space.
Both ponies fetched up, after stumbling several feet down a steep declivity, and the sound that their hoofs made as they did so was one of the most welcome that the fugitives could have heard.
Splash! splash!
"Water!" exclaimed Pete. "Our blind luck is just naturally holding out."
"Is it a watercourse?" inquired Jack, "or just a hole."
Pete leaned over, holding on by crooking his left foot against the cantle of his saddle.
"It's a creek, and flowing lively, too," he announced, as he held his hand in the water, "and incidentally, as the newspaper fellers say, I'm thirsty."
"So am I," agreed Jack. "Let's have a drink. Besides, we don't know how long it may be before we get another."