aughed up at him,
her blue eyes dancing. "It's the only way in which you can look over it
at all. _What_ a drop!"

Holding on to the bough above her shoulder with one hand she sat there,
gazing down, her feet dangling over the ghastly abyss. Elvesdon seemed
to feel his blood freeze within him, and his knees knocked together.
Even the tree shook and trembled beneath her weight.

"Isn't it rather dangerous?" he called out, striving to master the
tremulous anxiety of his voice. "The tree might give way, you know."

"It never has yet, which of course is not to say it never will--as you
were about to remark," she laughed back. "Well, I'll come up."

"Yes do," he said, bending over the brow of the grass-roll as though to
help her. But she needed no help. She sprang up, lithe, agile as a
cat, and in a moment was beside him.

"Would you like to try it?" she said eagerly, as if the feat was the
most ordinary one in the world. "Would you like to look over Sipazi? I
can tell you it's worth it. It feels like flying. But don't if you
think you can't," she added, quick to take in the not to be concealed
momentary hesitation.

That challenge settled it; yet the words were not meant as a challenge
at all, but as sheer practical warning. She would not have thought an
atom the worse of him if he had laughingly declined, but Elvesdon did
not know this. Was he going to shrink from a feat which a girl could
perform--had often performed? Not he.

"Yes. I think I should," he answered. "I should like to be able to
brag of having looked over Sipazi."

Yet as he let himself down over the grass and root-hung brow which led
to the actual brink, he owned to himself that by no possibility could he
ever tell a bigger he, and further, that at that moment he would
cheerfully have forfeited a year's pay to find himself standing safe and
sound on the summit again. Well, he would not look down. He would get
through the performance as quickly as possible, and return.

He was out on the tree, grasping the branch her hand had held on by.
Yet why did the confounded trunk tremble and sway so, and--horror! it
seemed to be giving way, actually sinking under him. The ghastly
thought darted through his mind that there was all the difference in
their weight--that that which would carry her would break down with him.
His nerve was tottering. His face grew icy cold, and the hand which
held the bough trembled violently. He was perched ov