"What do you mean?"

"Who can say where they are waiting for us? It may be five or ten miles away, or it may be within sight of the block-house. We can get there without setting foot in the trail agin."

"You may be partly right, Larry, though if we can strike the path five miles away from the falls, I won't be afraid to keep it until we reach the block-house. The risk beyond that isn't any greater than what we have always had to run from the time we leave the settlement till we get back again."

"It strikes me we are not gaining much time by standing here discussing the question."

As Larry spoke he turned to the left and moved off.

"Hold on!" interrupted his companion; "that will take us farther away than ever, and may lead us so far that we'll lose the stream altogether."

By going to the right they approached the current that had to be passed before they could recover the trail. Perhaps a passable spot was at hand, and the means of crossing the smaller ravine was as likely to be on one hand as the other.

With the same pains and labor as before they reached the stream, where they found themselves confronted by a peculiar condition of affairs.

The banks were somewhat farther apart, but they remained perpendicular rocks fully twenty feet in height, between which the torrent flowed so impetuously that they would have been as helpless as a balloon in a gale of wind. The crossing-place was still to be sought farther up the stream.

But to reach it they must place themselves on the farther side of the smaller ravine, which crossed their course at right angles. This opened directly into the current, with whose surface it was nearly even. In times of freshet or flood the dry ravine was probably a tributary torrent of the other. At present it looked impassable, but after studying it a few moments Wharton said:

"I believe, Larry, we can both jump that. What do you think?"

"I won't know for sartin till I try it; then I'll know, sure."

"So will we both; but the distance is less than where I made the leap."

"So it will have to be if it's mesilf that's to sail across."

The conformation of the dry ravine near the stream allowed them to see the other side. Wharton measured the width with his eye, and then, without a word, drew back a single step, and with little effort landed lightly on the opposite side.

"What do you think of that, Larry?"

"It isn't much for yersilf, but I would be proud of the same."

"I'm sure there will be no trouble. There is room for you to get a couple of yards start, and I wouldn't advise you to try it if I wasn't sure you would succeed."

Young Murphy was plucky, but he surveyed the task before him with some misgiving. With a depth of about twenty feet, and nothing but rock at the bottom, a failure to land on the other side meant death or serious injury.

He stood on the edge, and spent a minute or two peering down into the gloomy depths. Then he looked across at his friend, who cheered him on.

"I'll thry it," he said, resolutely, and with a shake of his head.

"Fling over your gun to me; it will be easier for you to make the jump without that than with it."

Larry tossed the rifle to his friend, who deftly caught the weapon.

Then, with the grim comicality of his nature, he threw his cap after it.

"If I do make a tumble of it, I should like ye to preserve that as a token of remembrance."

He now braced himself for the effort. With all his strength, he could not compare with his friend in speed and rapidity. The leap, however, was only a moderate one, and Wharton was confident he would make it if no mishap intervened.

And, beyond question, he would have done so had no interference taken place. He carefully backed a rod or so from the edge of the dry ravine.

Everything was going on well, but almost on the edge he stepped on a small pebble, unnoticed by the eye. The effect was slight, and a spectator would hardly have seen it, but, all the same, it was just enough to disarrange his stride, so that when the leap, which he was forced to make, took place, it was faulty. He lost the impetus that otherwise would have landed him on his feet on the other side with hardly a jar to his body.

"I can't do it! I can't do it, Whart!" called the leaper at the moment of bounding into the air, for he could not fail to know that he was about to fall short.

The waiting friend said nothing, but braced himself for the shock, for he, too, knew what was coming.

Larry barely missed landing, but his hands were thrown forward where his feet should have struck, and had he received no help he would have gone backward and down the ravine.

But it was for this that Wharton Edwards had prepared himself. Each hand of Larry was grasped by his own, and he almost lay on his back as he tugged to draw him out of the gorge and up on the solid support above.

Had not Wharton dug his heels into a projection, he would have had to let go or be drawn downward with his friend, who could not help drawing tremendously on him. Larry, however, gave great aid by throwing one foot on top of the rock, and using that limb as a lever with which to lift his body the rest of the short distance. This so lessened the task that the next minute the danger was over, and the two stood beside each other.

CHAPTER XVII.

BY THE LAKE.

The place for which the two were searching was found within a furlong of where Larry Murphy, with the assistance of his companion, leaped the day before. But how different from that which they had in mind! Instead of a simple widening and shallowing of the stream, it expanded into a small lake several miles long, with a width one-third or one-half as great.

The sheet of water discharged itself through the narrow, canyon-like passage, eventually finding its way into the Ohio. The placid surface gleamed in the moonlight, and was without a ripple. The shores were shaded by overhanging limbs, and the scene was as lonely, as beautiful and impressive as at creation's morn. The only sign of life was themselves.

"Now," said young Edwards, after he and his friend had gazed upon the water for some minutes in silence, "it looks as if the only way to get back to the trail is to go round the lake."

"But that may reach a dozen miles or farther yet, and by the time we have come round the same we'll be forty miles from the block-house, and not knowing which way to turn to find it. Ye're aware, Whart, how hard it is to keep our bearings whin we're in the woods without knowing the course to take to git anywhere. We'll be sure to go astray, and may pass within fifty yards of the block-house without knowing the same."

"You mustn't forget that the trail which we have been following is not the only one that leads to the place. They extend out in all directions, and we'll strike some of them."

"How can we know which course to take? The bother of it is, one may go farther away from it all the time."

"It isn't as bad as that, but," added Wharton, gravely, "the night is getting far along, and we must be several miles from the path, unless it happens to bend around toward the lake. We can't get back to it before daylight, if we do then. What I am afraid of is that father and mother won't wait at the block-house for us, but run right into the very danger we have just escaped."

"Do ye mind now that they won't start before morning, and they can't reach the falls till about noon?"

"That all sounds reasonable enough," replied Wharton, who was considerably agitated, "but how do we know we're going back to the trail inside of the next two or three days?"

Larry looked at his companion in surprise. The two were standing where the moonlight fell upon them, and their countenances were plainly visible to each other. It had been the Irish youth that, previous to this time, had expressed the most misgiving as to the result, but the other seemed to become, all at once, the most despondent.

The fact was that Wharton was quite buoyant in spirits until they came to the lake. He had been hoping that long before this they would be able to turn back toward the trail, and the prospect of several miles'

farther detour naturally caused his discouragement.

Those were not the days when young men carried watches, but they knew it was beyond midnight. They were ravenously hungry and were fagged out.

They had been undergoing severe exertion for many hours, and Wharton especially had been forced to tax his endurance to the utmost extremity during that fearful race with Blazing Arrow.

"Larry," said he, taking a seat on a bowlder just without the fringe of shadow cast by the trees, "I don't know whether the best thing we can do isn't to sleep for the rest of the night. I was never so tired in all my life."