ow without touching a twig in its
course. Back of this broad ledge there was a very peculiar formation. A
column of stone rose abruptly 40 feet higher and was topped with a large
slab about 12 feet in diameter. This was known all over that region as
the Goblins' Dancing Platform. The only possible way of gaining the
summit of the column was by climbing a scraggly oak tree which grew on
the high ground back of the pillar, crawling out on an overhanging limb,
and then dropping down to the platform below. It was in this oak that we
decided to build our house. It was a very inaccessible spot, and to
reach it we had to make a wide detour around the back of the hill, and
through the fields of a cranky farmer, who more than once threatened to
fill us with bird shot for trespassing on his property. How were we to
carry all our building materials up to this great height? One would
think that the difficulties would be enough to discourage us, but not so
with the S. S. I. E. E. of W. C. I. Nothing daunted us.

DUTCHY TAKES A DARE.

Our first task was to try some other approach to the top of the cliff.
At one side of the overhanging ledge there was a fissure in the rocks
which ran from the base of the pillar to the foot of the cliff. Down
this zigzag crevice Dutchy had scrambled, one afternoon, on a dare. We
were rather frightened when he started, because it was a very hazardous
undertaking, and we watched him anxiously, peering over the edge of the
precipice. By bracing his back against one of the walls of the rock, and
digging his feet into the niches and chinks of the opposite wall, he
safely made his way to a shelf about half-way down, where he paused to
rest. From that point on the fissure widened out, and a steep, almost
vertical incline, sparsely covered with vegetation, led to the railroad
track below. I think he must have become rather frightened at his
position, because he hesitated long before he resumed his downward
course, and when he finally did make the attempt his foot slipped upon
the moss-covered rocks and down he fell, scratching and clawing at every
shrub within reach. Believing him to be killed, we rushed down the hill
and around to the foot of the cliff. It probably took us about fifteen
or twenty minutes, though it seemed ages before we came upon our
venturesome comrade coolly trying to pin together a rent of inconvenient
location and dimensions in his trousers.

"Say, Dutchy, are you killed?" cried Bill,