But hark! a huge stone rolls down over
the mountain-side, then another, and another;
the noise grows, the birches down there in the
gorge tremble and shake. Aasa leaned out over
the brink of the ravine, and, as far as she could
distinguish anything from her dizzying height,
thought she saw something gray creeping slowly
up the neck-breaking mountain path; she
watched it for a while, but as it seemed to
advance no farther she again took refuge in her
reveries. An hour might have passed, or perhaps
more, when suddenly she heard a noise
only a few feet distant, and, again stooping out
over the brink, saw the figure of a man strug-
gling desperately to climb the last great ledge
of the rock. With both his hands he clung to
a little birch-tree which stretched its slender
arms down over the black wall, but with every
moment that passed seemed less likely to
accomplish the feat. The girl for a while stood
watching him with unfeigned curiosity, then,
suddenly reminding herself that the situation
to him must be a dangerous one, seized hold
of a tree that grew near the brink, and leaned
out over the rock to give him her assistance.
He eagerly grasped her extended hand, and
with a vigorous pull she flung him up on the
grassy level, where he remained lying for a
minute or two, apparently utterly unable to
account for his sudden ascent, and gazing around
him with a half-frightened, half-bewildered
look. Aasa, to whom his appearance was no
less strange than his demeanor, unluckily hit
upon the idea that perhaps her rather violent
treatment had momentarily stunned him, and
when, as answer to her sympathizing question
if he was hurt, the stranger abruptly rose to his
feet and towered up before her to the formidable
height of six feet four or five, she could no
longer master her mirth, but burst out into a
most vehement fit of laughter.
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