Flinging caution to the winds, Dick leaped rapidly forward. Suddenly a cry of alarm escaped his lips.
Rushing full tilt through a mass of vegetation, he saw a yawning crevice, a sort of crack extending backward from the face of the cliff, before him. His impetus was too great to be checked, and Dick gave a gasp of horror, as he felt himself sliding over the edge.
[CHAPTER IX]
AN EXCURSION
"Grab hold of him—do, that's a good fellow! Stop the beast! Whoa, Buttercup, whoa! Oh, dear, won't somebody stop him?"
Howard Fenton, seated on Mr. Barton's big black horse, was having a most uncomfortable time in the field by the house. It was the first of a series of lessons in the art of horseback riding that Sam Randall had undertaken to give him.
Sam, Tom Clifton and young Bins, painful to relate, were roaring with laughter.
"Golly, but dis chile neber seed nuthin' like that. Oh, dese city fellers! Golly!" and Sam showed his white teeth again.
Buttercup, as if indignant at the awkwardness of his rider, danced and pawed the ground and bobbed his head up and down, while Howard struggled desperately to hold his seat.