"I thought sure our last hour had come," admitted Tim.
"Anyway," Tom went on, "our fall was pretty much broken by the bushes and various growths we tumbled through. When we got to our feet we hugged in close to the wall of rock that rose above and by our side and with the bushes overhead and a slight hollow in the ledge to hide us, the troopers never saw us at all."
"They think sure thot we are falling yet," put in Tim.
"I guess they believed that we had gone down clear to the bottom. Anyway, if we had, I don't think any of us would have ever lived to tell the tale. The Redcoats didn't stay looking for us long, and by noon-time we crawled out, then by slipping, sliding, holding fast and helping each other, we got down the rest of the mountain side and struck the lower trail that we had hoped to find."
"What happened then?" asked Dick, while Fritz sat with his mouth wide open to catch every detail.
"Well, next day we got down to a place where the trails meet again and there were a bunch of Indians holding a pow-pow, celebrating a victory over the same British troop from whom we had escaped the day before. Of course our Indian companion recognized them at once and insisted on our going with him."
"Sure, but they were a friendly lot, and we were mighty hungry by that time," said Tim.
"They were friendly to us," said Tom, "because we had saved the life of one of their tribe and because they knew you too."
"Yes, that was the tribe we were traveling with," said Tim. "When we told them what we wanted to do, they helped us fix up the canoe we have. Some one had punched a hole in it."
"Yah, I bunched dot hole already, I dink," admitted Fritz.