“Oh, do let me get him!” Lionel cried, looking down appealingly, and speaking with the accent which had always impressed hearers as so quaint and odd in a child.
“No, you mustn't go a bit higher!” Galt said, assuming a youthful tone of comradery that his words might not have any semblance of command. “You are a dandy climber—almost as good as the cat, but he is lighter than you are. You'll break that limb in a minute, and down you will tumble!”
The boy looked at the bending bough and shrugged his square shoulders. “I don't know but what you are right,” he said, with a wry face. “I declare, I wasn't looking where I was going. I'm almost afraid to move now.” Then he burst into a merry laugh as he glanced first at his would-be rescuer and then up at the cat.
“Why, what is so amusing about it?” Galt questioned, fairly transported by the boy's beauty, fearlessness, and vivacity.
“Oh, I don't know, but it seems funny—you down there, me up here, and the cat above us both.”
Galt laughed till tears came into his eyes.
“You are certainly a marvel,” he said. “But you must come down. Slide carefully toward the trunk of the tree and catch hold of it firmly. You'll tear your clothes, but it is better that than—”
“I know an easier way!” the child cried. “I'll jump, and you catch me.”
“But I can't!” Galt answered. “You'd crush me to the ground, small as you are!”
“No, I wouldn't!” Lionel laughed, with thorough confidence. “Doctor Wynn caught me the other day when I jumped from the roof of the wagon-shed, and you are stronger than he is. You are taller, anyway. Look, I am coming!”