"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."

"And he did that to beat the band," declared Owen.

"I guess it was all real to him," the trapper went on to say; "and
chances are, when he heard the trickling of this little brook that runs
through the sink here, he thought it was a river away below him. Oh, I
can feel for Toby all right. I once had an experience myself something