In a few minutes Dick gained a strip of open
ground beyond, and found himself on the bank of a broad river, whose
evidently deep waters rushed impetuously along their unobstructed
channel. The bank at the spot where he reached it was a sheer
precipice of between thirty and forty feet high. Glancing up and
down the river he retreated a few paces, turned round and shook his
clenched fist at the savages, accompanying the action with a shout of
defiance, and then running to the edge of the bank, sprang far out
into the boiling flood and sank.
The Indians pulled up on reaching the spot. There was no possibility
of galloping down the wood-encumbered banks after the fugitive; but
quick as thought each Red-man leaped to the ground, and fitting an
arrow to his bow, awaited Dick's re-appearance with eager gaze.
Young though he was, and unskilled in such wild warfare, Dick knew
well enough what sort of reception he would meet with on coming to the
surface, so he kept under water as long as he could, and struck out as
vigorously as the care of his rifle would permit.
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