The place was strangely, painfully still; even the savage yelling of the distant Indians seemed to die away as I advanced, and nothing broke the oppressive silence but an occasional flutter of leaves, or my own deep breathing.

I had gone, I take it, half or three-quarters of a mile, not directly north, but circling ever to the eastward, seeking thus to reach the house from the rear, when I came to a sharp break in the surface of the land, somewhat deeper and more abrupt than those before encountered.

It seemed like a cut or ravine made by some rush of water lakeward; and, as I hesitated upon the edge of it, peering across and wondering if I had better risk the plunge, my eyes caught the blaze of the Kinzie light scarce a hundred yards from the opposite bank of the ravine.
Assured that I was headed right, I stepped off with a new confidence that, for the moment, conquered my usual prudence,--for the steep bank gave way instantly beneath my weight.

I grasped vainly at the edge, fell heavily sidewise, and rolled like a great log, bruised and half-stunned, into the black gorge below.

I remember gripping at a slender bush that yielded to my touch; but all the rest was no more than a breathless tumble, until I struck something soft at the bottom,--something that squirmed and gripped my long hair savagely, and pushed my head back with a grasp on the throat that nearly throttled me.
It was all so sudden, so unexpected, that for the moment I was helpless as a child, struggling merely from the natural instinct of preservation to break free.