d then, made heedless by play, we had ventured on to
the big trees just beyond. I cannot understand how Lop-Ear got over his
habitual caution, but it must have been the play. We were having a great
time playing tree tag. And such tag! We leaped ten or fifteen-foot gaps
as a matter of course. And a twenty or twenty-five foot deliberate drop
clear down to the ground was nothing to us. In fact, I am almost afraid
to say the great distances we dropped. As we grew older and heavier we
found we had to be more cautious in dropping, but at that age our bodies
were all strings and springs and we could do anything.

Broken-Tooth displayed remarkable agility in the game. He was "It" less
frequently than any of us, and in the course of the game he discovered
one difficult "slip" that neither Lop-Ear nor I was able to accomplish.
To be truthful, we were afraid to attempt it.

When we were "It," Broken-Tooth always ran out to the end of a lofty
branch in a certain tree. From the end of the branch to the ground it
must have been seventy feet, and nothing intervened to break a fall.
But about twenty feet lower down, and fully fifteen feet out from the
perpendicular, was the thick branch of another tree.

As we ran out the limb, Broken-Tooth, facing us, would begin teetering.
This naturally impeded our progress; but there was more in the teetering
than that. He teetered with his back to the jump he was to make. Just as
we nearly reached him he would let go. The teetering branch was like a
spring-board. It threw him far out, backward, as he fell. And as he fell
he turned around sidewise in the air so as to face the other branch into
which he was falling. This branch bent far down under the impact, and
sometimes there was an ominous crackling; but it never broke, and out
of the leaves was always to be seen the face of Broken-Tooth grinning
triumphantly up at us.

I was "It" the last time Broken-Tooth tried this. He had gained the end
of the branch and begun his teetering, and I was creeping out after him,
when suddenly there came a low warning cry from Lop-Ear. I looked down
and saw him in the main fork of the tree crouching close against the
trunk. Instinctively I crouched down upon the thick limb. Broken-Tooth
stopped teetering, but the branch would not stop, and his body continued
bobbing up and down with the rustling leaves.

I heard the crackle of a dry twig, and looking down saw my first
Fire-Man. He was creeping stealthily alon