the tur-r-key whings--I mean,
he went down to the ledge arter the tur-r-key, and the vines bruk an' he
couldn't git up no more. An' he tole me that ef I'd tell ye ter fotch
him a rope ter pull up by, he would gimme the whings. That happened
a--leetle--while--arter dinner-time."

"Who got him a rope ter pull up by?" demanded Pete.

There was again on the important face that indescribable shade of
embarrassment. "Waal,"--the youngster balanced this word judicially,--"I
forgot 'bout'n the tur-key whings till this minute. I reckon he's thar
yit."

"Mebbe this hyar wind an' rain hev beat him off'n the ledge!" exclaimed
Pete, appalled and rising hastily. "I tell ye now," he added, turning to
his mother, "the best use ye kin make o' that boy is ter put him on the
fire fur a back-log."

Pete made his preparations in great haste. He took the rope from the
well, asked the [v]crestfallen and browbeaten junior a question or two
relative to the place, mounted old Sorrel without a saddle, and in a few
minutes was galloping at headlong speed through the night.

The rain was over by the time he had reached the sulphur spring to which
George had directed him, but the wind was still high, and the broken
clouds were driving fast across the face of the moon.

By the time he had hitched his horse to a tree and set out on foot to
find the cliff, the moonbeams, though brilliant, were so [v]intermittent
that his progress was fitful and necessarily cautious. When the disk
shone out full and clear, he made his way rapidly enough, but when the
clouds intervened, he stood still and waited.

"I ain't goin' ter fall off'n the bluff 'thout knowin' it," he said to
himself, in one of these [v]eclipses, "ef I hev ter stand hyar all
night."

The moonlight was brilliant and steady when he reached the verge of the
crag. He identified the spot by the mass of broken vines, and more
positively by Ethan's rifle lying upon the ground just at his feet. He
called, but received no response.

"Hev Ethan fell off, sure enough?" he asked himself, in great dismay and
alarm. Then he shouted again and again. At last there came an answer, as
though the speaker had just awaked.

"Pretty nigh beat out, I'm a-thinkin'!" commented Pete. He tied one end
of the cord around the trunk of a tree, knotted it at intervals, and
flung it over the bluff.

At first Ethan was almost afraid to stir. He slowly put forth his hand
and grasped the rope. Then, his heart beating