[ARCHIE KIRK'S LEAP FOR LIFE.]
BY LILLIE E. BARR.
"Alice, may I? Say I may. I can do it, dear sister"; and as he spoke, Archie Kirk bent eagerly over his sister's chair.
Three weeks before, he and Alice had been rescued—the only survivors—from a fine ship that had gone to pieces off the coast of the island of St. Kilda, which is a little speck of land in the wide waters of the Atlantic, forming a part of the Hebrides.
They had been tenderly cared for by the good islanders, and the request which Archie had made of his sister, and which she was very reluctant to grant, was, that he might go with Hakon Bork—the son of the good woman who had given them food and shelter—in search of the eggs and down of puffins, a species of sea-bird upon which these simple people depend mainly for their subsistence.
THE PUFFIN-HUNTERS.
"You are so young, and it is such a terrible way to earn your bread," replied Alice, who shudderingly remembered watching Hakon but the day before fasten his rope to a stake, and then lower himself down the awful precipice, with nothing but his firm grip to save him from falling into the foaming, raging sea beneath. "You are too young, Archie."
"Why, Alice, I am ten years old, and boys much younger than I go down all alone. These people are very good to us, but they are also very poor. I feel mean to accept their charity, and do nothing in return, when Hakon says I can help him if I will."
"It is so terrible, Archie, and if I should lose you too!" cried Alice, whose heart was still full of sorrow for her lost parents.