he was; and what had
happened to him and why. He knew he had followed the fence for a full
mile, AWAY from the road; through the nearer woods, and gradually
upward until he had come the line of hazels on the lip of the
ninety-foot ravine which dipped down into a swamp-stretch known as
"Pancake Hollow."

That was what he had done. In trying to skirt the hazels, he had
stepped over the cliff-edge, and had dropped five feet or more to a
rather narrow ledge that juts out over the ravine.

Well did he remember this ledge. More than once, on walks with the
Mistress and the Master, he had paused to look down on it and to think
fun it would be to imprison someone there and to stand above, guying
the victim. It had been a sweet thought. And now, he, himself, was
imprisoned there.

But for luck, he might have fallen the whole ninety feet; for the ledge
did not extend far along the face of the cliff. At almost any other
spot his tumble might have meant--

Cyril shuddered a little; and pursued the grisly theme no further. He
was safe enough, till help should come. And, here, the blast of the
wind did not reach him. Also, by cuddling low in the litter of leaves
and fallen brush, he could ward off a little of the icy cold.

He crouched there; shaking and worn out. He was only eleven. His
fragile body had undergone a fearful hour of toil and hardship. As he
was drawing in his breath for a cry to any chance searchers, the boy
was aware of a swift pattering, above his head. He looked up. The sky
was shade or two less densely black than the ravine edge. As Cyril
gazed in terror, a shaggy dark shape outlined itself against the
sky-line, just above him.

Having followed the eccentric footsteps of the wanderer, with great and
greater difficulty, to the fence-lee where the tracing was much easier,
Lad came to the lip of the ravine a bare five minutes after the child's
drop to the ledge.

There, for an instant, the great dog stood; ears cocked, head
inquiringly on one side; looking down upon the ledge. Cyril shrank to a
quivering little heap of abject terror, at sight of the indistinct
animal shape looming mountain-high above.

This for the briefest moment. Then back went Lad's head in a pealing
bark that seemed to fill the world and to reecho from a myriad
directions at once. Again and again, Lad gave clamorous voice to his
discovery of the lost child.

On a clear or windless night, his racket must have penetrated to the
dullest