As he neared the black shadows of the willows he could feel his heart sink like lead through all the reaches of his shaking anatomy.

He had passed quite beyond the hearing of his father's commands and reproaches, and the wash and rush of the river came up to him out of the silence.
"Hullo!" cried the boy, pausing irresolutely.
Then seemingly from the earth at his very feet came a faint answer to his call, and Custer, forcing his way through a rank growth of weeds and briers, stood on the brink of a deep gully that a small brook had worn for itself on its way to the river below.

In the bed of this brook was a dark object that Custer could barely distinguish to be the figure of a man.

A bruised and bleeding face was upturned.
"Give me your hand--" gasped the man.
Custer knelt on the bank and grasping a tuft of grass to steady himself extended his free hand.
"Are you hurt bad ?" he asked.
"I don't know--" gasped the man, as he endeavored to draw himself up out of the bed of the brook.
But after a moment of fruitless exertion he sank back groaning.
"Go for help!" he said, in a painful whisper.

"You are not strong enough for this." "How did you get here ?" asked Custer.
"I fell off the railroad bridge, the current landed me here; where am I, anyhow ?" "At the brick slaughter-house," said Custer.
"I thought so; can't you get some one to help you ?" But Custer, his reasonable curiosity satisfied, was already on his way back to the road.