“Well, for your sake I will spare him,” said Bruce. “You spoke just in time. He owes you his life. Say, children, let’s not climb the mountain to-day. Let’s rest here a while, call it a full day, and go back.”
They laughed at him mockingly, and finally he flung himself down with a hopeless groan.
“I think I will go back, anyhow,” he said. “I don’t think I’d ever survive the rest of this climb.”
“But you can’t go back, Bruce,” said Elsie. “We won’t let you go back. We want you with us. We want you to provide amusement for us.”
“Oh, so that’s it?” he exclaimed, with another pretended burst of anger. “So you want me to come along and make a holy show of myself, do you? You think I am better than a three-ring circus, I suppose! You think I am better than a cage of monkeys, I suppose! I have heard you laughing and saying things to one another in low tones. I am onto the whole of you. You’re a heartless lot of heathens! You enjoy human suffering! You have no sympathy or tenderness in your marble hearts! Pretty soon I will get mad and tell you just what I think of you.”
“Don’t do it,” entreated Henry Rattleton. “You might knock our sherves—that is, shock our nerves.”
Having admired the view spread beneath them and refreshed themselves by a rest on the ledge, they finally prepared to start again. It was then found that, with his arms curled beneath his head, Browning was fast asleep. Frank gave the big chap a nudge with the toe of his boot.
“Come, come, Browning,” he cried; “it’s your move.”
“Gimme half the bed,” grunted Browning, rolling over on his side and apparently preparing to continue his nap.
Merry was compelled to shake him violently, and, protesting against such usage, the lazy chap finally sat up.