an old
adobe dwelling. It was on a hill, quite a distance outside the town,
and was not often visited by any one. The old adobe had long ago
lost its tile roof, some of the walls had fallen, its former Spanish
inhabitants had long since disappeared, and quick-motioned, small
lizards now and then ran over the thick, ruined walls that stood,
dark and crumbling, against the light-brown of the wild oats on the
hill.

Jo climbed on top of one of the higher adobe walls. It still
retained its Spanish thickness, being about five feet through,
although crumbling at the sides and somewhat uncertain as to
uprightness.

"Must have taken a lot of clay to make it," thought Jo.

Just then a little lizard, that had been sunning itself in a niche
in the adobe wall, started, disturbed by Jo's proximity, and ran
swiftly over to another part of the wall. Jo was anxious to see
where the creature went. The boy jumped over a broken place in the
wall, and walked on its top, regardless of the fact that the adobe
was trembling.

"Guess it's gone where I can't see it," said Jo to himself. "This is
a nice sunny place for a lizard. I--"

Jo had stepped a little too far. There was a sudden trembling of the
wall. Jo caught at the adobe, which came away in handfuls, and he
fell with a large portion of the old wall.

The next thing he knew, he was lying, choked with dust, on what was
once the floor of the old Spanish dwelling. He was overtopped by a
heavy pile of debris, from under which he struggled in vain to
extricate himself. He had one free hand, with which, when he found
that other exertions did not avail, he tried to dig himself out; but
the more he dug, the more the great pile of adobe above him slid
down on his face, till he was in such imminent danger of being
smothered that he was forced to desist.

It was almost all he could do to breathe with such a weight upon
him, but after a few moments' rest he tried to shout for help. His
shouts were not very loud, and soon he had to stop. He lay breathing
heavily and looking up at the pile of dull earth.

"I wish," he panted, "I hadn't--come here."

He fervently hoped that some sight-seer like himself might be
attracted to the old, out-of-the-way adobe, for Jo was now convinced
that it was impossible for him to set himself free. He tried again
and again, but always with the same result of semi-suffocation under
the sliding debris.

The forenoon passed away. The sun, mounting higher, s