ope to his side, so there was
nothing left for me to do but to follow.

This I did, but not till I had had a good long look round from my high
perch at the deeply-cut ravine with its rugged piled-up masses of cliff,
and tiny river, to which it seemed to me I was now the heir.

CHAPTER THREE.

A GUNPOWDER PLOT.

We three boys sat down at the edge of the steepest side of the crags
after this to rest, and think what we should do next, and to help our
plans we amused ourselves by pitching pieces of loose stone down as far
as we could.

Then the rope was dragged over the Beacon rock and coiled up, while I
tugged and wriggled the iron bar to and fro till I could get it free.

"Let's go down to the shore now, and see if we can find some crabs," I
said. "The tide's getting very low."

"What's the good?" said Bob picking up the iron bar, and chipping this
stone and loosening that. "I say, why don't some of those stones rock?
They ought to."

He began to wander aimlessly about for a few minutes, and then, finding
a piece that must have been about a hundredweight, he began to prise it
about using the iron bar as a lever, and to such good effect that he
soon had it close to the edge.

"Look here, lads," he cried, "here's a game! I'm going to send this
rolling down."

We joined him directly, for there seemed to be a prospect of some
amusement in seeing the heavy rugged mass go rolling down here, making a
leap down the perpendicular parts there, and coming to an anchor
somewhere many hundred feet below where we were perched.

For there was not even a sheep in sight, the side of the valley below us
being a rugged mass of desolation, only redeemed by patches of
whortleberry and purple heath with the taller growing heather.

"Over with it, Bob," cried Bigley; "shall I help?"

"No, no, you needn't help neither," said Bob. "I'm going to do it all
myself scientifically, as Doctor Stacey calls it. This bar's a
fulcrum."

"No, no," I said; "that isn't right."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Bigley.

"Then what is it, please, Mr Clever? Doctor Stacey said bars were
fulcrums, and you put the end under a big stone, and then put a little
one down for a lever--just so, and then you pressed down the end of the
bar--so, and then--"

"Oh! Look at it," cried Bigley.

For Bob had been suiting the action to the word, and before he realised
what he was doing the effect of the lever was to lift the side of the
big stone, so tha