Perceiving that he had lost his vantage-ground, upon the holding of which depended the successful result of his stratagem, and that the steep hill-side to which he had unwittingly shifted the struggle, gave the long and nimble savage a decided advantage over him, Burl determined to shift again. Desperate though it might seem, he would, by rolling with him thither, bear his antagonist bodily down to the foot of the hill, where on level ground once more, as he trusted, he should still be able to make his stratagem go. To this intent putting forth all his huge strength, he grappled yet closer with the Indian, locking his legs around him as well as his arms. Then with a heave on his part, like the roll of a buffalo-bull, unwittingly seconded by a big flounce on the part of the savage, down the precipitous slope did these redoubtable giants, leaving their wake to be traced by the weeds laid flat to the hill, and hugging yet tighter and tighter, go rolling and whirling and tumbling, over and over, each uppermost, undermost, all in a wink--till over the river bank whirlingly pitching, they dropped, with a splash too terrific to tell or conceive, into water full twenty feet deep. And a smooth, round, ponderous stone, which the force of their downward career had pushed from its seat on the hill, came rolling and leaping behind them with frightfully growing momentum, and tumbled in after them--plump! Verily, the wheel of fortune had never before made so many turns in so short a time! Its axle fairly smoked as it rolled into the water.