Harper's Young People, October 5, 1880.

by Various.

HANGING BY A THREAD.

A Canadian Story.

BY DAVID KER.

"Well, boys, what do you think of _this_ for a play-ground? Something like, ain't it?"

And well might Tom Lockyer say so. To be out in the woods on a fine summer morning, with the whole day clear, is a pleasure which any boy can appreciate, more especially such an active one as Master Tom; and he and his two cousins had certainly enjoyed it to the utmost. Ever since breakfast they had been scampering through the woods like wild-cats, climbing trees, tearing through briers, scrambling up and down rocks, chasing each other in and out of the thickets, and making the silent forest ring with their shouts and laughter.

Tom had good reason to remark, with a broad grin, that nothing was left undamaged except their lunch bags; for all three were muddy from head to foot, ragged as scarecrows, and so scratched that their hands and faces looked just like railway maps done in red ink. But none the less were they all fully persuaded that they had been enjoying themselves immensely, and were quite ready to begin again as soon as they could find breath to do so.

"Here's the place for us to lunch, my boys!" cried Tom, flinging himself down upon the soft turf that carpeted the summit of the ridge which they had just climbed. "This is one of our best views, and you can feast your eyes and teeth together."

It was, indeed, a splendid "look-out place." The opposite face of the ridge went sheer down to the edge of the river, which, narrowed at this point to less than half its usual width by the huge black cliffs that walled it in, went rushing and foaming through a succession of furious rapids for nearly a quarter of a mile, plunging at length in one great leap over a precipice of nearly a hundred feet--a perfect Niagara in miniature.

"I say, Tom, old fellow, didn't you tell us that you went canoeing along this river every summer? You don't mean to say, surely, that you can take a canoe over that water-fall?"

"Not _exactly_," laughed Tom; "that _would_ be a little too much of a good thing. Whenever we come to anything of this sort, we make a portage, as the French boatmen say--carry our canoes round by land, and then launch them again below the fall. There's a snug little path just round the corner, and as soon as we're through with lunch we'll just go down and look about us."

Tom's "snug little path" proved to be very much like the stair of a ruined light-house, and would have seemed to most people almost as bad as going down the precipice itself. But Charlie and Harry Burton, though new to the rocks of the Severn, had had plenty of climbing elsewhere, while as for Tom himself, he could have scaled anything from a church steeple to a telegraph pole.

The view was certainly well worth the trouble. Just at the break of the fall the stream was divided by a small rocky islet crested with half a dozen tall pines, the "Goat Island" of this toy Niagara. In the few rays of sunlight that struggled down into the gloomy gorge the rushing river with its sheets of glittering foam, and the bright green ferns and mosses that clung to the dark cliffs around, and the shining arch of the fall itself, and the rocks starting boldly up in mid-stream, tufted with cl.u.s.tering leaves, made a splendid picture.

Close to the water's edge ran a kind of terrace, formed by the sliding down of the softer parts of the cliff; and along this the three walked till they came right abreast of the fall.

"Hollo!" cried Harry, suddenly, "didn't you say that n.o.body ever shot these rapids? Why, there's a fellow trying it now!"

There, sure enough, as he pointed up the stream, appeared a canoe with a single figure in it, shooting down the river like an arrow, and already close upon the edge of the rapids.

"Good gracious!" cried Tom, with a look of horror, "it's some fellow being swept down by the stream! See, he's broken his paddle, and can't help himself!"

Instinctively all three sprang forward at once, although the doomed voyager was manifestly beyond the reach of help. But even as they did so, the crisis came. With one leap the boat was in the midst of the rapids, banged to and fro like a shuttlec.o.c.k by the white leaping waves, amid which it appeared and vanished by turns, till a final plunge sent it right toward the edge of the fall.

The lookers-on turned away their faces; but all was not over yet. By a lucky chance the boat's head had been turned straight toward the island, upon which the current drove it with such force as to dash it in among the sharp rocks, that pierced its sides and held it firm, while its occupant was flung forward on his face among the bushes.

"Phew!" said Tom, drawing a long breath, "what a shave! Ugh! wasn't it horrid, just that last minute? I'm awfully glad he's got off."

"But how's he to get ash.o.r.e?" asked the practical Charlie. "It seems to me he's in just as bad a fix as ever."

Meanwhile the unlucky voyager had scrambled to his feet, and was staring wildly about him.

"Well, I declare!" exclaimed Tom, "if it isn't my old chum Fred Hope!

I'd no idea he was home again."

"I don't think he sees us," said Harry; "let's give him a hail, just to show him there's help at hand. I've heard my father say that if a fellow's left long alone in a place like that he'll go crazy with the fright and the motion of the water."

Tom was not slow to take the hint. He sprang upon the bowlder behind which they were standing, and, putting both hands to his mouth, shouted, above the din of the water-fall, "Hollo, Fred, old boy! how goes it?"

"Who-o's that?" answered a faint voice, tremulous with terror.

"Why, don't you remember Tom Lockyer?"

"Oh, Tom, is that you? Get me out of this somehow, if you can."

"Never fear, old chap; we'll have you out in no time," replied Tom, cheerily.

"But how on earth are you going to do it?" whispered Harry, amazed at his friend's confident tone.

"Haven't the least idea, so far," answered the philosophic Tom, coolly; "but it's got to be done _somehow_. If the worst comes to the worst, I can always run home for help, while you two stay here and keep his spirits up."

"If we could only get a rope across," suggested Charlie. "He's got one there, I know, for I saw it tumble out of the boat as she swamped; but how are we to get at it?"

"_I_ have it!" cried Tom, suddenly. "Fancy my not thinking of this old sling of mine, when I've been using it all morning! I've read lots of yarns about fellows sending messages by arrows: let's see if a stone won't do just as well for once!"

He produced a ball of twine from his pocket as he spoke, and fastened one end of it firmly around a jagged stone which he had picked up.

"See if you've got some more string, boys," said he; "perhaps this bit won't be long enough."

The cord was soon lengthened sufficiently, and Tom, bidding his comrades keep a firm hold of the other end, mounted once more upon the bowlder, and shouted, "Fred, ahoy!"

"Hollo!" responded the islander, whose nerves were being rapidly steadied by the prospect of help, and the sound of Tom's cheery voice.

"We're going to chuck you a line: mind and be ready to catch it."

"All right."

The stone whizzed through the air, and splashed into the water on the other side of the islet, while Fred promptly seized the cord attached to it.

"So far so good, as the hungry boy said when he got half way through the pie," remarked Tom. "Now, old fellow, just knot the string to that rope of yours, and the job's done."

Fred obeyed at once, and the two Burtons hauled in. The rope, once landed, was quickly made fast to the nearest tree, while Fred secured _his_ end to one of the pines on the islet. The communication was complete.

"But what next?" asked Harry. "Do you expect the poor fellow to walk ash.o.r.e on that rope, like Blondin?"

"Not quite," said Tom, laughing. "It's a case of Mohammed and the mountain--if he don't come to me, I must just go to him. Here goes!"

And, our hero, swinging himself up on to the rope, began to slide along it, hand over hand, in true gymnastic style.

Taut as the line was, it yielded a little with his weight, and he came perilously near the water midway; but the rope held firm, and in another moment he was safe upon the islet, shaking hands heartily with the expectant Fred.

"Mr. Robinson Crusoe, I presume?" said Tom, with a grin. "I'm the Man Friday, at your service; and a nice little island we've got of it. Now, old boy, there's your road open, and you've just seen the correct way to travel it; so off with you, and show us the latest thing in gymnastics."

"What, along _that rope_?" cried Fred, with a shudder which showed that he had not quite shaken off his panic yet. "Ugh! I couldn't. The bare sight of the fall below me would turn me sick; it looks just as if it was watching for me to tumble in!"