"Don't talk to him, Papa," pleaded Tommy.
"He's right, Steve," spoke Mrs. Davis.
But once after this Tommy spoke.
"Joe! Try that un on the other side!"
Again they watched the foot feeling about. Again it found the limb. Once they saw him, like a bear cub, hug the trunk. Once he slid and fragments of bark came tumbling down. Closer to earth drew the small figure. They could hear the calloused little bare feet scraping the bark. Then, all of a sudden, Steve Earle had swung himself up by the lower branches. His strong arms reached upward and were lowered down to them, and from his fingers a gasping little figure slid to the ground.
It was still light enough to see the face. The grin with which he had started out in life to brave an unfriendly world was gone, and in its place was terror—terror of those awful heights, of that swaying tree, of night and storm, and now of these faces about him. The sturdy chest was rising and falling. He looked pitifully small, like a baby.
There came a blinding flash of lightning, and a clap of thunder that seemed to burst the woods open. In the momentary flash they saw his white face and dilated eyes.
Mrs. Davis had sunk to her knees, arms outstretched.
"Darling!" she cried. Tommy had heard his mother say it that way. Then he turned his head in a sort of embarrassment, for Joe had run into Mrs. Davis's arms, and Joe was sobbing on Mrs. Davis's ample bosom; and no gentleman, big or small, likes to witness his friend's emotions.