The "little way" proved to be a good two miles; but the three girls did not falter. They saw the big farmhouse and the great barns and snow-filled paddocks a long way ahead.
"I'll be glad of that 'warm'," confessed Betty, as they turned in at the entrance to the lane. "And maybe Mrs. Candace will give us a cup of tea."
At that moment Bobby clutched her arm and pointed up the lane. "See there! He'll fall! Oh, look!"
Betty was as startled as her chum when she spied what Bobby had first seen. A little, crooked man was crawling out above the hay door of the main barn upon a timber that was here thrust out from the framework and to which was attached a block and fall. The rope had evidently fouled in the block and he was trying to detach it.
"That's Hunchie Slattery!" gasped Betty, "What a chance he is taking!"
For everything was sheathed in ice from the effect of the rain and frost of the night before. That timber was as slippery as glass.
Ida Bellethorne set off on a run for the barn; but unlike Bobby she did not say a word. Had she thought of any way to help the crooked little man, however, she was too late. Hunchie suddenly slipped, clutched vainly at the rope, which gave under his weight, and he came down "on the run."
The rope undoubtedly broke his fall. He would have been killed had he plunged immediately to the frozen ground beneath.
As it was, when the three girls reached him, he was unconscious and it was plain by the attitude in which he lay that his leg was broken.