flock took suddenly to wing,--a flash from among the leaves, the sharp
crack of a rifle, and one of the birds fell heavily over the bluff and
down toward the valley.

The young mountaineer's exclamation of triumph died in his throat. He
came running to the verge of the crag, and looked down ruefully into the
depths where his game had disappeared.

"Waal, sir," he broke forth pathetically, "this beats my time! If my
luck ain't enough ter make a horse laugh!"

He did not laugh, however. Perhaps his luck was calculated to stir only
equine risibility. The cliff was almost perpendicular; at the depth of
twenty feet a narrow ledge projected, but thence there was a sheer
descent, down, down, down, to the tops of the tall trees in the valley
far below.

As Ethan Tynes looked wistfully over the precipice, he started with a
sudden surprise. There on the narrow ledge lay the dead turkey.

The sight sharpened Ethan's regrets. He had made a good shot, and he
hated to relinquish his game. While he gazed in dismayed meditation, an
idea began to kindle in his brain. Why could he not let himself down to
the ledge by those long, strong vines that hung over the edge of the
cliff?

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, ef 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 ha