years but was at the time lying sick at her sister's place.

Something influenced Claude to get out of the big car to take a
little stroll. Perhaps the sight of all those happy lads running
and jumping and throwing weights had made him feel more than ever
his own narrow, confined life, kept out of the society of all the
other boys after school hours, and made to play the part of a
"mollycoddle," as Roosevelt called all such fellows who have never
learned how to take care of themselves when a bully threatens.

Unused to the woods and hills, of course the first thing Claude did
was to lose all sense of direction. He became alarmed, and that
made matters worse than ever. So he had roamed about for almost a
full hour, dreadfully tiring his poor feet and limbs, since he had
never before in all his life walked so far and done such vigorous
climbing.

Then he had come to that precipice, and, thinking he might glimpse
the cottage where the old nurse lived, somewhere down in the valley,
he had incautiously crept too close to the brink, when his weight
caused a portion of the soil to give way. Finding himself falling,
Claude had clutched desperately around him, and, as it happened, his
fingers gripped a friendly bush, to which he continued to cling even
as he struggled to better his condition and shouted as best he was able.

Hugh finished the story, to the edification of "Just" Smith, who
admitted that if it had not been for the courage and muscular ability
of Hugh the other boy must long ago have fallen to the bottom of the
awful precipice. And Claude, shivering as he afterwards looked up at
the forty feet and more of rocky wall, vowed he would never rest