“Why, it seems to me quite comic to think that we two fellows, who ought to have known better, should have made such a hullabaloo about nothing at all. Oh, I say, isn’t it lucky that nobody else was here! I wouldn’t—”
“Ah!” gasped Mark, as there was a faint rattling of bits of stone, and plish, plash, plosh, three fragments dropped into the water.
“All right, sonny,” said Dean, who had shifted his position and begun to climb. “I am en route; no tree roots here, though, but plenty of stony holes. Clear the course, for up I come!”
The boy spoke cheerily enough, but his words were accompanied by a faint panting as if he were making great exertion.
“I say, though, Mark,” he went on, “how about your brave British boy? How about your manly pluck? Pretty pair we have been! All right, old man; I didn’t slip. It was a stone. Ah!” ejaculated the boy, with a cry of pain.
“Oh, Dean!”
“Don’t! It’s all right, I tell you. Do you want to frighten me off?”
“No, no, no. But you cried out.”
“Enough to make me. I must have twisted my ankle a bit, and it gave me such a stab just then. All right—better. Up I come. What was I talking about? Oh, I know. But I say, Mark, don’t you feel like a gallant young Briton, ready to face any danger?”
“No, I don’t,” cried Mark angrily. “I feel like a miserable coward;” and he uttered a hysterical sob as he passed his wet hand over his dripping brow.