She laughed in a mirthless way.
“Well, you better believe that I was scai’t some, when I found I couldn’t git out. I wiggled and I waggled, but it didn’t do no good; and there I had to stay.”
She laughed again, with that singular, mirthless cackle.
“Well, I was safe enough from wolves and varmints of that kind; you’d better believe I was. I didn’t hear a wolf, ner did a single wild cat er panther try to pay me a visit; but when mornin’ come I couldn’t git out.
“I reckon I hollered so much that if the breath I wasted doin’ it was all collected, it’d fill the sails of the British navy. But it didn’t do a mite o’ good, seemed like, till bime-by I reckon you heerd me.”
“Yes, I heard you. Your yells were enough to wake the dead!”
She glanced down into the hole and shivered.
“Now, if you’ll permit me, I’ll try to help you down to the ground,” he said.
“Oh, law, I kin make that all right; that don’t trouble me a little bit!”
To show that it did not, she swung down from the nest of branches, and then, grappling the tree as if she were a man, she slid down to the ground. The scout followed her, and soon stood beside her on the shelving slope.