Toby was hanging there all right, red of face from his long-continued exertion, and looking appealingly up to his chums. He had caught hold of a friendly stout root as he found himself going over, and to this he clung, digging his toes from time to time into the face of the "precipice," and in this way managing to sustain himself, though almost completely exhausted by the alarm and strain combined.
"Ain't you g-g-goin' to h-h-help me?" he gasped, amazed no doubt to hear his heartless chums laughing at his misfortune.
"Let go, Toby!" cried Max.
"Yes, drop down and take a rest!" added Steve, who could enjoy a joke to the utmost when it was on Toby, with whom he often had words; though all the same they were quite fond of each other.
"W-w-want me to get s-s-smashed, d-d-don't you?" answered back the indignant boy, as he continued to clutch that root, as though he believed it to be the only thing between himself and destruction.
"Look down, you loon!" cried Steve. "Call that a big drop? Why, I declare the ground ain't more'n six inches down below your feet! Shucks; did I ever hear the like!"
Toby did twist his neck the best he could and look. Then with a glad cry he released his hold on the friendly root to fall in a heap.
"Let's get down to him," said Trapper Jim, "he must be pretty well used up, I reckon. Perhaps he's been hangin' thar half an hour'n more."
"But whatever made him do such a silly thing?" asked Steve, as they proceeded to go around the edge of the little "sink," led by the trapper, who knew every foot of ground.
"Well, I don't know that it was so queer after all," declared Jim; "you see, when he fell over here in the dark, how was Toby to know whether he was hanging over a precipice ten feet deep or a hundred? All he could do was to keep hold of that root and holler for help."