f?

It was risky, Ethan knew, terribly risky. But then,--if only the vines
were strong!

He tried them again and again with all his might, selected several of
the largest, grasped them hard and fast, and then slipped lightly off
the crag.

He waited motionless for a moment. His movements had dislodged clods of
earth and fragments of rock from the verge of the cliff, and until these
had ceased to rattle about his head and shoulders he did not begin his
downward journey.

Now and then as he went he heard the snapping of twigs, and again a
branch would break, but the vines which supported him were tough and
strong to the last. Almost before he knew it, he stood upon the ledge,
and with a great sigh of relief he let the vines swing loose.

"Waal, that warn't sech a mighty job at last. But law, if it hed been
Peter Birt 'stid of me, that thar wild tur-r-key would hev laid on this
hyar ledge plumb till the Jedgmint Day!"

He walked deftly along the ledge, picked up the bird, and tied it to one
of the vines with a string which he took from his pocket, intending to
draw it up when he should be once more on the top of the crag. These
preparations complete, he began to think of going back.

He caught the vines on which he had made the descent, but before he had
fairly left the ledge, he felt that they were giving way.

He paused, let himself slip back to a secure foothold, and tried their
strength by pulling with all his force.

Presently down came the whole mass in his hands. The friction against
the sharp edges of the rock over which they had been stretched with a
strong tension had worn them through. His first emotion was one of
intense thankfulness that they had fallen while he was on the ledge
instead of midway in his [v]precarious ascent.

"Ef they hed kem down whilst I war a-goin' up, I'd hev been flung down
ter the bottom o' the valley, 'kase this ledge air too narrer ter hev
cotched me."

He glanced down at the somber depths beneath. "Thar wouldn't hev been
enough left of me ter pick up on a shovel!" he exclaimed, with a tardy
realization of his foolish recklessness.

The next moment a mortal terror seized him. What was to be his fate? To
regain the top of the cliff by his own exertions was an impossibility.

He cast his despairing eyes up the ascent, as sheer and as smooth as a
wall, without a crevice which might afford a foothold, or a shrub to
which he might cling. His strong head was whirling as he ag