“I’m not going to walk with my heart. It is my legs that are going to get busy this time, but I’m going to make a flying start and take a toboggan slide down that stretch of rocks,” announced Stacy, making a run for a smooth sloping surface of the mountain.
“Not that way, Stacy!” shouted Tom Gray warningly.
His warning was too late. Stacy had started, not for the short slope up which they had climbed, but towards another and longer one a few yards to the right of it, a slope that led to a drop of hundreds of feet of almost empty space, as Tom and Hippy knew.
Both men made a dash for the boy. He turned his head to make a face at them, caught his toe on a rock and plunged headlong down the slope, shooting down and disappearing over the edge, uttering frightful howls.
The Overland girls screamed and Emma and Nora covered their eyes to shut out the sight of Stacy, as they supposed, going to his death.
CHAPTER XVI
MOUNTAIN OF DISTRESS
“He’s killed! He’s killed!” wailed Emma.
“Do something! Hippy, why don’t you do something?” urged Nora hysterically.
“If you will tell me what to do I’ll try. Stacy is probably done for. No one could take that drop and live,” answered Lieutenant Wingate.