He strolled back to the fire and, lighting his pipe, sat down beside Sparwick.
The boys felt too wretched and heartbroken to sleep. In tearful whispers they talked about Jerry.
“I can hardly believe that he is dead,” said Brick. “He was an awfully good fellow.”
“No better ever lived,” replied Hamp. “He was murdered, Brick. Sparwick drove him over that cliff. I’ll never rest until both these scoundrels are caught and punished.”
“Nor I,” added Brick. “We’ll devote our lives to it. It won’t seem long now until we are free.”
“But it takes a good while to go to New York and back from here,” said Hamp. “Anyhow, will Raikes know where to find us now?”
“They must have left a message for him at the cabin,” replied Brick; “or perhaps it was all arranged beforehand.”
At this point Bogle and Sparwick came over to bed, and the conversation ended abruptly.
We must now return to the events of the previous night.
After shooting sixty feet downward from the top of the precipice, Jerry plunged into the bushy branches of a pine tree that jutted outward from a crevice in the wall of rock. He stuck for an instant, and then slipped through. He fell a farther distance of thirty feet, and landed in another pine tree.