Michele ran up and leaped into Tim’s arms, and he spun her in circles while the entire crowd clapped for joy. “One of our searchers heard a faint cry,” Sheriff Knupp explained, “and the man macheted through a patch of saw-toothed palmettos to find the boys standing there, holding hands. Joel said in a hoarse voice, ‘Please take us back to the campgrounds to where our mommy and daddy are.’”

“Where were they?” I asked. “Are they okay?” “The little rascals got more than two miles away, behind Deerhaven Lake,” he said. “They’re mosquito-bit and a little dehydrated and hungry.” The boys were carried first by horseback, then by truck, to camp, where they rushed into the waiting arms of Tim and Michele. “My mommy told me not to litter,” he said. The diaper had been buried for the same reason. “And we didn’t drink out of the dirty lake

or eat any bad berries,”

Joel said.

“Were you real scared at night?” I asked. “No, Gramma. When it got dark, we curled up together and went to sleep, and when it got light, we tried to call out to the helicopters to come and find us.” Joel and Eric were the centre of a state-wide television broadcast, during which our family thanked the earthly angels who came to our rescue.

On live TV I watched Joel reach out to rub the back of Eric’s neck while he spoke very plainly. “I was the onliest one to rescue both of our lives,” he said.

“He’s my brother and I love him.” — Beliefnet.com (Concluded)