I guess there never had been so much cawing on the top of Greylock as when Bill stood there, after his hard climb, looking down on the hills, which did not seem like hills, he was so much higher.
The air was so clear that Williamstown seemed close. So, after resting a few minutes and drawing the sign on a flat rock to show which way he had gone, he started down the west side of the mountain on a run, whooping and yelling like an Indian at every jump.
Then, just as he was thinking how easy it was and what fun he would have bragging to us boys about what he had done, he caught his foot in a root or something, fell headlong, rolled down until he struck a tree; then lay still.
How long he had lain there, when he finally came to life again, he couldn't tell. At first he didn't know where he was or what had happened. Then he remembered and tried to get on his feet and go on.
With a cry of pain, he sank back again. He had sprained his ankle and hardly could move it without yelling.
When Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked on an island he wrote on a piece of paper the good things and the bad things that had happened to him. To start with, he wrote on one side, "I am shipwrecked on an island," or something like that, and on the other, "but I am alive."
Bill did the same, only he didn't write it. He thought it.
"I've busted my ankle," he said to himself, "but I didn't break my bottles or spill my water.
"I can't walk a step, but I can yell to beat the band.
"I can't get to Williamstown and I can't get home, but I have something to eat in my pack and plenty of matches in my pocket.