old
Sorrel in the closing darkness, looking like a very small pin on the top
of a large pincushion.

At home, he found the elders unreasonable,--as elders usually are
considered. Supper had been waiting an hour or so for the lack of meal
for dodgers. He "caught it" considerably, but not sufficiently to impair
his appetite for the dodgers. After all this, he was ready enough for
bed when small boy's bedtime came. But as he was nodding before the
fire, he heard a word that roused him to a new excitement.

"These hyar chips air so wet they won't burn," said his mother. "I'll
take my tur-r-key whing an' fan the fire."

"Law!" he exclaimed. "Thar, now! Ethan Tynes never gimme that thar wild
tur-r-key's whings like he promised."

"Whar did ye happen ter see Ethan?" asked Pete, interested in his
friend.

"Seen him in the woods, an' he promised me the tur-r-key whings."

"What fur?" inquired Pete, a little surprised by this uncalled-for
generosity.

"Waal,"--there was an expression of embarrassment on the important
freckled face, and the small red head nodded forward in an explanatory
manner,--"he fell off'n the bluffs arter the tur-r-key whings--I mean,
he went down to the ledge arter the tur-r-key, and the vines bruk an' he
couldn't git up no more. An' he tole me that ef I'd tell ye ter fotch
him a rope ter pull up by, he would gimme the whings. That happened
a--leetle--while--arter dinner-time."

"Who got him a rope ter pull up by?" demanded Pete.

There was again on the important face that indescribable shade of
embarrassment. "Waal,"--the youngster balanced this word judicially,--"I
forgot 'bout'n the tur-r-key whings till this minute. I reckon he's thar
yit."

"Mebbe this hyar wind an' rain hev beat him off'n the ledge!" exclaimed
Pete, appalled, and rising hastily. "I tell ye now," he added, turning
to his mother, "the best use ye kin make o' that thar boy is ter put him
on the fire fur a back-log."

Pete made his preparations in great haste. He took the rope from the
well, asked the crestfallen and browbeaten junior a question or two
relative to locality, mounted old Sorrel without a saddle, and in a few
minutes was galloping at headlong speed through the night.

The rain was over by the time he had reached the sulphur spring to
which George had directed him, but the wind was still high, and the
broken clouds were driving fast across the face of the moon.

When he had hitched his horse to a tree, and se