Storytelling. The adventure of the three students and other stories. Сборник

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      A loud cry, a scrambling overhead, and then a great shaking and howling waked Tommy so suddenly that he lost his wits for a moment and did not know where he was.

      “The bear! the bear! don’t let him get me! Tommy, Tommy, come and make him let go,” cried Billy, filling the quiet night with dismal howls.

      Tommy looked up, expecting to behold a large bear eating his unhappy friend; but the moonlight showed him nothing but poor Billy dangling from a bough, high above the ground, caught by his belt when he fell. He had been dreaming of bears, and rolled off his perch; so there he hung, kicking and wailing, half awake, and so scared it was long before Tommy could make him believe that he was quite safe.

      How to get him down was the next question. The branch was not strong enough to bear Tommy, though he climbed up and tried to unhook poor Billy. The belt was firmly twisted at the back, and Billy could not reach to undo it, nor could he get his legs round the branch to pull himself up. There seemed no way but to unbuckle the belt and drop. That he was afraid to try; for the ground was hard, and the fall a high one. Fortunately both belt and buckle were strong; so he hung safely, though very uncomfortably, while Tommy racked his boyish brain to find a way to help him.

      Billy had just declared that he should be cut in two very soon if something was not done for him, and Tommy was in despair, when they thought they heard a far-off shout, and both answered it till their throats were nearly split with screaming.

      “I seem to see a light moving round down that way,” cried Billy from his hook, pointing toward the valley.

      “They are looking for us, but they won’t hear us. I’ll run and holler louder, and bring ‘em up here,” answered Tommy, glad to do anything that would put an end to this dreadful state of things.

      “Don’t leave me! I may fall and be killed! The bear might come! Don’t go! don’t go!” wailed Billy, longing to drop, but afraid.

      “I won’t go far, and I’ll come back as quick as I can. You are safe up there. Hold on, and we’ll soon get you down,” answered Tommy, rushing away helter-skelter, never minding where he went, and too much excited to care for any damage.

      The moon was bright on the blasted trees; but when he came down among the green pines, it grew dark, and he often stumbled and fell. Never minding bumps and bruises, he scrambled over rocks, leaped fallen trunks, floundered through brooks, and climbed down steep places, till, with a reckless jump, he went heels over head into a deep hole, and lay there for a moment stunned by the fall. It was an old bear-trap, long unused, and fortunately well carpeted with dead leaves, or poor Tommy would have broken his bones.

      When he came to himself he was so used up that he lay still for some time in a sort of daze, too tired to know or care about anything, only dimly conscious that somebody was lost in a tree or a well, and that, on the whole, running away was not all fun.

      By and by the sound of a gun roused him; and remembering poor Billy, he tried to get out of the pit, – for the moon showed him where he was. But it was too deep, and he was too stiff with weariness and the fall to be very nimble. So he shouted, and whistled, and raged about very like a little bear caught in the pit.

      It is very difficult to find a lost person on these great mountains, and many wander for hours not far from help, bewildered by the thick woods, the deep ravines, and precipices which shut them in. Some have lost their lives; and as Tommy lay on the leaves used up by his various struggles, he thought of all the stories he had lately heard at the farm, and began to wonder how it would feel to starve to death down there, and to wish poor Billy could come to share his prison, that they might die together, like the Babes in the Wood, or better still the Boy Scouts lost on the prairies in that thrilling story, “Bill Boomerang, the Wild Hunter of the West.”

      “I guess mother is worried this time, because I never stayed out all night before, and I never will again without leave. It’s rather good fun, though, if they only find me. I ain’t afraid, and it isn’t very СКАЧАТЬ