He knew that the average rate of descent is sixteen feet per second, and unless one knows how, a broken leg or worse may be the outcome of an inexperienced landing. But their luck had held so far, apparently. Osceola and Sam were both sinewy, well-muscled fellows—they would probably come out all right. For all their sakes, he hoped so. A disabled companion in the middle of the Everglades, with no means of transport other than one’s two legs, would prove a problem that Bill did not care to contemplate.