Believing him
to be killed, we rushed down the hill and around to the foot of the cliff.
It probably took us about fifteen or twenty minutes, though it seemed ages
before we came upon our venturesome comrade coolly trying to pin together
a rent of inconvenient location and dimensions in his trousers.
"Say, Dutchy, are you killed?" cried Bill, breathlessly.
"Killed, nothing," he replied, with scorn. "I suppose you fellows think I
had a fall. Well, I didn't."
"You didn't, eh? We saw you slip."
"Oh, go on. I came down that way on purpose. There was no use in picking
my way down like a 'fraid cat, when I could just as well take a smooth and
easy toboggan slide on the bushes all the way down."
Smooth and easy toboggan slide! Well, you should have seen the hillside.
The course was well defined by the torn and uprooted shrubs and the pile
of branches and vines at Dutchy's feet. Whether the hare-brained Dutchy
really imagined he could glide easily down on the shrubbery, his frantic
movements on the way certainly belied his story, and when, the next day,
we proposed that he repeat the trick, somehow he didn't seem to be very
enthusiastic on the subject.
[Illustration: Wichita Indians Building a Straw Hut.
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