t was the means
of saving him from painful results, since at the bottom of the bank lay
a bed of good-sized rocks that would have caused many an ugly bruise had
he fallen among them.

But suddenly, as he went falling, slipping, clutching wildly at the
elusive weeds, he was brought up with a suddenness that drove the
breath from his body. Weak and panting, he struggled up to the top of
the jutting ledge, assisted by two strong arms, and throwing himself
upon it looked wonderingly around for his rescuer.

Above him towered the boy in the straw hat.

CHAPTER II.

STATION ROAD AND RIVER PATH.

Traveling north by rail up the Hudson Valley you will come, when some
two hours from New York, to a little stone depot nestling at the
shoulder of a high wooded hill. To reach it the train suddenly leaves
the river a mile back, scurries across a level meadow, shrills a long
blast on the whistle, and pauses for an instant at Hillton. If your seat
chances to be on the left side of the car, and if you look quickly just
as the whistle sounds, you will see in the foreground a broad field
running away to the river, and in it an oval track, a gayly colored
grand stand, and just beyond, at some distance from each other, what
appear to the uninitiated to be two gallows. Farther on rises a gentle
hill, crowned with massive elms, from among which tower the tops of a
number of picturesque red-brick buildings.

Then the train hurries on again, under the shadow of Mount Adam, where
in the deep maple woods the squirrels leap all day among the tree tops
and where the sunlight strives year after year to find its way through
the thick shade, and once more the river is beside you, the train is
speeding due north again, and you have, perhaps without knowing it,
caught a glimpse of Hillton Academy.

From the little stone station a queer old coach rumbles away down a wide
country road. It carries the mail and the village supplies and, less
often, a traveler; and the driver, "Old Joe" Pike, has grown gray
between the station and the Eagle Tavern. If, instead of going on to the
north, you had descended from the train, and had mounted to the seat
beside "Old Joe," you would have made the acquaintance of a very worthy
member of Hillton society, and, besides, have received a deal of
information as the two stout grays trotted along.

"Yes, that's the 'Cademy up there among them trees, That buildin' with
the tower's the 'Cademy Buildin', and the