The itch of life was in my fingers; it, and no thought of mine, made me reach out and grasp at the sturdy shrubs which grew on the mountain-side. With each hand full, I hung on, and shouted and kicked. Big waves of snow tumbled over me and loosened my arms in their sockets, but I swung to my brave bushes until I had received my last douse of snow and the slope was swept clean. I managed to get my toes into a cleft, and my arms felt better. My head was beginning to think and come to the relief of instinct. I saw that I was about ten feet from the crest of the cliff; which was not far, but too far. I tried to draw myself up by the bushes, but I was no sailor, and I failed. Then I shouted with all my might. I had seen the smoke of the camp just before my fall, and I hoped my voice would reach the men there. I never knew before that I had such a good voice. "Hello-o-o-o!" I shouted. The mountains took up the cry and sent it back to me. "What's the matter down there?" called out some one. "The matter?" I said, angrily. "There's no matter at all; I came down here merely for amusement. I do this sort of thing often." I looked up and saw the red face of Colonel Hetherill peeping over the brink at me. "Ah, it's young West, the Yankee spy," he said. "I'm young West, I'll admit, but I'm no Yankee spy," I replied. "I insist that you are a Yankee spy," he said, in an infernally calm and convincing manner. "What proof can you give that you are not?" "Colonel," I cried, and I'm sure that my tone was convincing, "for heaven's sake drop that Yankee spy business and get me out of this." "Sir," he said, very stiffly, "I have accused you of being a Yankee spy, and I will compel you to admit that you are a Yankee spy." "Colonel," I shouted, "my arms are growing tired, and so are my toes, and it is at least two hundred feet to the bottom." "Sir," he said, still very stiff and haughty, "I despise falsehoods, and so do all Southern gentlemen. You are a Yankee spy, and you still have the face to deny it." "Pull me up colonel," I cried. "I'm getting awful tired." "Are you not a Yankee spy?" he asked. I thought I felt some of the muscles in my arms cracking. The time to despise trifles had arrived. "Yes, colonel," I said, "I'll admit that I'm a Yankee spy or anything else you want to charge against me." "Good enough," he said. "Now when I let my coat down, grip it with your right hand, and hold on as if you had grown to it." He pulled off his Confederate overcoat, curved his left arm around a jutting rock, and with his right hand lowered the coat to me. I embedded my right hand in the gray garment, and, grasping with the other at the short shrubs, tried to scramble up. I did get about half-way, but as I could find no more crevices for my toes, I hung there, limp and exhausted. "I can't do it, colonel," I gasped. "You must," he said.