Page:The Adventures Of A Revolutionary Soldier.pdf/198

196 sense and reason enough to keep myself from running headlong into the fire.

Another scrape of a similar complexion, I got into about this time, when I ran as great or greater risk of losing my life, than I did in the one just related. I have before, in this narrative, informed the reader of my propensity to gunning whenever I could get an opportunity to indulge myself in it. The mountains on the Hudson, called the Highlands, had an abundance of partridges, heath-hens and grey squirrels upon them, especially on the western side of the river. I had one day got over the river and among those hills for an afternoon's hunting. I had not been long there, when, going along by the side of a steep mountain, I saw and shot a squirrel, but only badly wounding it; it fell from the tree just before me, upon a flat part of the rock, which projected from the side of the mountain, and was about twenty feet wide, and perhaps, two or three rods long, as steep as the ordinary roof of a house; the lower edge, or what might be denominated the eves, hung over a frightful precipice, eighty or a hundred feet perpendicular. My game, as I said before, fell upon this rock and was scrambling off across it. I laid down my gun and gave it chase. When I had got about half way across this rock and nearly up with the squirrel, being so intent upon overtaking it that I did not observe the danger I was in, I slipped and fell upon my side and slid directly down the rock, towards the precipice, until my feet were within a foot or two of the brink. There happened, providentially, to be a small savine, or red cedar bush, about the size of a man's wrist at the root, which had grown out of a crevice in the rock, but had fallen down, yet hung by a single root, not larger than a pipe stem; this tree, as it lay, reached almost to the lower edge of the rock. When I had got to the top end of it, and was in full motion directly for the edge of the rock, I instinctively caught hold of the tree, which immediately stopped my way; but when I looked up and saw by what a slender hold I depended, I own that I felt affrighted; however, by using great caution and bearing with as little weight on the tree as possible, I got up to the upper part of the rock, where it was more level. When I had got upon my feet again, I made off, thankful for whole bones, though not with an entire whole skin.