Once, when he had gone with his father to the mill and no one was looking, Tommy had tried to walk out, just a little way. Everything had turned black. He only knew his father was calling him to look up, not down. But he could not take his eyes from the rushing water under his feet. While he was falling, arms had snatched him up. Tommy began to sob as they hurried. It was growing darker in the woods. There had been no rain yet, but high up in the trees was a roaring sound, and now and then leaves and dead twigs came whirling down into the quieter regions below. "Can you see Frank?" asked Earle. "No. Call him, Steve. We may be off the track." "I'm afraid to do that, John. If it rains hard, as it's apt to do any minute, he will lose the trail." "There's nothing else to do!" cried Davis above the wind. "We may be going wrong!" Earle stopped. His hat had fallen off and he had not paused to pick it up. Tommy had never seen his face as it was now. "Here, John, take the boy," he said. "I'll run for the dam!" Just then, sharp and clear above the wind, from the dark wooded bottoms ahead, came a bark--a strange little yelp to be made by so big a dog, but the kind a bird dog makes when he functions as a hound. Tommy saw a smile on his father's face. "The old dog's treed, John!" Then he started running, Tommy keeping pace. "Speak to him, Frank!" he called. "Let us hear you talk!" Again, in answer, through the woods came the shrill, self-conscious yelp, then silence, then the yelp again. "You wait here, son," said Earle. "Wait for Mrs. Davis and Aunt Cindy. Tell 'em to follow the bark. You know the place, don't you? That's the boy. Come on, John! Speak to us, Frank! Speak to us, old man!" The two men were looking up into a lofty, tossing tree when Tommy and the women reached them. Above them the trees thrashed back and forth bewilderingly, showing the stormy sky, then covering it over, then showing it again. And there, looking up into the tree also, eyes shining, tongue hanging out, sides heaving, was old Frank. Once he reared up on the trunk of the tree as if to make sure again. He whiffed the bark, his tail wagging. Then he jumped down and looked up once more. Earle's voice was strangely quiet when he spoke. "I see him," he said. They all crowded about. "My God--he's way out at the end of the top limb. If his head swims----" He began to talk loud, his face still raised. "Joe, listen, old man. We are all your friends down here. Tommy's here." Davis had sat down on the ground and was hurriedly pulling off his shoes. His beard fell down over his shirt and his hands were trembling. "It won't do, John," spoke Steve Earle, and Tommy, aghast, saw the look on his father's face. "The limb he's on will never hold you. He might try to get farther out, and if he does----"