ledges, and turning, looked anxiously along the
red clay road which he could see winding among the trees down the
mountain's side.

No wagon was there.

His eyes followed the road further and further toward the foot of the
range, and then along the valley beyond. There, at least two miles
distant, was a small moving black object, plainly defined upon the red
clay of the road.

Barney was gone! There was no mistake about it. They had taken him away
from Goliath Mountain! He was innocent, and Nick knew it, and Nick had
made him seem guilty. There was no one near him now to speak a good word
for him, not even his palsied old grandmother.

It all came back upon Nick with a rush. His eyes were blurred with
rising tears. Unconsciously, in his grief, he made a movement forward,
and suddenly clutched convulsively at the ledge.

He had lost his balance. There was a swift, fantastic whirl of vague
objects before him, then a great light seemed flashing through his very
brain, and he knew that he was falling.

He knew nothing else for some time. He wondered where he was when he
first opened his eyes and saw the great stone shaft towering high above,
and the tops of the sun-gilded maples waving about him.

Then he remembered and understood. He had fallen from that narrow ledge,
hardly ten feet above his head, and had been caught in his descent by
the far broader one upon which he lay.

"It knocked the senses out'n me fur a while, I reckon," he said to
himself. "But I hev toler'ble luck now, sure ez shootin', kase I mought
hev drapped over this ledge, an' then I'd hev been gone fur sartain
sure!"

His exultation was short-lived. What was this limp thing hanging to his
shoulder? and what was this thrill of pain darting through it?

He looked at it in amazement. It was his strong right
arm--broken--helpless.

And here he was, perched thirty feet above the earth, weakened by his
long faint, sore and bruised and unnerved by his fall, and with only his
left arm to aid him in making that perilous descent.

It was impossible. He glanced down at the sheer walls of the column
below, shook his head, and lay back on the ledge. Reckless as he was, he
realized that the attempt would be fatal.

Then came a thought that filled him with dismay,--how long was this to
last?--who would rescue him?

He knew that a prolonged absence from home would create no surprise. His
mother would only fancy that he had slipped off, as he had often