importance. "Pap sez its free miles on the road. Take all day ter
get there."
The bright faces were overcast.
"Less go down er slide!" said Hickory, boldly.
[Illustration]
They approached the edge of the cliff. The "slide" was simply a
sharp incline zigzagging down the side of the mountain used for
sliding goods and provisions from the summit to the tunnel men at
the different openings below. The continual traffic had gradually
worn a shallow gulley half filled with earth and gravel into the
face of the mountain which checked the momentum of the goods in
their downward passage, but afforded no foothold for a pedestrian.
No one had ever been known to descend a slide. That feat was
evidently reserved for the Pirate band. They approached the edge of
the slide hand in hand, hesitated--and the next moment disappeared!
[Illustration]
* * * * *
Five minutes later the tunnel men of the Excelsior mine, a mile
below, taking their luncheon on the rude platform of _debris_ before
their tunnel, were suddenly driven to shelter in the tunnel from an
apparent rain of stones, and rocks, and pebbles, from the cliffs
above. Looking up, they were startled at seeing four round objects
revolving and bounding in the dust of the slide, which eventually
resolved themselves into three boys and a girl. For a moment the
good men held their breath in helpless terror. Twice, one of the
children, had struck the outer edge of the bank and displaced stones
that shot a thousand feet down into the dizzy depths of the valley!
and now, one of them, the girl, had actually rolled out of the slide
and was hanging over the chasm supported only by a clump of chimasal
to which she clung!
"Hang on by your eyelids, Sis! but don't stir for Heaven's sake!"
shouted one of the men, as two others started on a hopeless ascent
of the cliff above them.
[Illustration]
But a light childish laugh from the clinging little figure seemed to
mock them! Then two small heads appeared at the edge of the slide;
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