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96 They looked up. The hole was all of thirty-five or forty feet deep, and from ten to fifteen feet across. The sides were of dirt and rocks, covered here and there with wet moss.

Luckily they had landed on a pile of half-decayed leaves and tree branches, otherwise they must have been seriously injured. The rushes and some dirt had fallen all around them.

For a full minute neither spoke. During that time they examined the walls of the hole.

"We've got to get out somehow," said Dick, at last. "But to climb that wall seems impossible."

"Let us try it, anyway," returned Leander.

He found what he considered the best place, where several jagged rocks projected, and by digging his hands into the soil succeeded in pulling himself up a distance of eight or ten feet.

"Look out!"

As Dick uttered the cry he leaped back out of danger.

Down came several of the rocks, accompanied, by a great mass of dirt.

Leander followed, to roll over on his back on top of the pile.

"Great Cæsar!" gasped the fallen one. "I didn't think I was going to pull down the whole wall over me."