“Why do you think I know about it?” Tom wanted to gain time. His only hope was that some one might stray down into the woods within reach of his voice. As to the cliff, he knew well enough, for he had often examined it, and even tried the feat in fun once or twice, that it could not be scaled. From the hollow where he stood, the face of the rock slanted outward above him, rendering escape in that direction out of the question.
“If you no give me, I come up and take watch—maybe hurt you!” snarled the Indian in his guttural tones.
“Hold on,” said poor Tom, at his wit’s end; more anxious, now, for the safety of the watch than for himself. “It will be easier for me to come down than for you to climb way up here.”
“You come then—quick!”
The man was plainly growing angry, and laid his hand on his knife as he spoke, by way of menace.
But Tom had no idea of coming down. Instead of that, he suddenly drew back a step, and shouted at the top of his lungs,
“Help! Help! Tim, uncle Percival! Help!”
For a moment the Indian seemed taken aback at this unlooked-for move, glancing fearfully over his shoulder as if he expected to hear Tim’s sturdy footfalls. Then his rage got the better of him, and, grasping the branches once more, he began to clamber upward.
Fortunately, being rather stout, he could not manage the ascent quite so nimbly as Tom. The boy, pale as death, sprang back into the furthest corner of the cavity, intending to fight to the last, in defence of the watch, the loss of which had brought such sorrow to Pet, and such disgrace and unhappiness to his own summer vacation at his uncle’s.
What would have been the result of such a struggle, I cannot tell. The Indian was armed, and the boy would have been but a baby in his hands, if the issue depended upon mere strength. But at this moment a strange thing happened.