, `here's your old wife a-coming, Sam,' for
he run away from her ten years ago. But it wouldn't be no good. He
wouldn't believe it."

Bart hesitated for a few moments as he reloaded his rifle, and then he
shouted to Sam:

"Now, no nonsense, Sam. You must get back."

The man paid no heed to him, and Bart turned to Joses to say loudly:

"We can't leave him here like this. He must climb back or fall, so if
he won't climb back the sooner he is out of his misery the better."

"That's a true word," said Joses.

"Give me your axe then," said Bart, and Joses drew it from his belt,
when Bart took it, and after moistening his hands, drove it into the
branch just where it touched the tree, making a deep incision, and then
drove it in again, when a white, wedge-shaped chip flew out, for the boy
had been early in life taught the use of the axe.

Then cutting rapidly and well, he sent the chips flying, while every
stroke sent a quiver along the great branch.

Still Sam clung to the spot where he had been from the first, and made
no effort to move; and at last, when he was half-way through the branch,
Bart stopped short in despair, for the pretence of cutting it off had
not the slightest effect upon Sam.

"Tired, Master Bart?" cried Joses just then; and snatching away the axe,
he began to apply it with tremendous effect, the chips flying over the
precipice, and a great yawning opening appearing in the upper part of
the branch.

"Don't cut any farther, Joses," whispered Bart; "it will give way."

"I shall cut till it begins to, Master Bart," replied the man; and as he
spoke he went on making the chips fly, but still without effect, for Sam
did not move.

"I shall have to give up directly, my lad," whispered Joses, with a
peculiar look; "but I'll have one more chop."

He raised the axe, and delivered another sharp blow, when there was a
loud crack as if half a dozen rifles had gone off at once, and almost
before the fact could be realised the branch went down, to remain
hanging only by a few tough portions of its under part.

Bart and Joses looked over the precipice aghast at what they had done,
and gazed down at Sam's wild face, as, with his legs dislodged from
their position, he seemed to have been turned right over, and to be
clinging solely in a death grip with his arms.

Then, with cat-like alacrity, he seemed to wrench himself round, holding
on to the lower part of the bough with his legs; and the next moment