Part 50

"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----"

Then, as calmly as she could, Mrs. Davis called to the boy, pleading with him to come down, telling him that she would be his mother, not knowing, anxious, excited woman that she was, that the word probably meant nothing to that child tossing up there in mid-air.

And now for the first time Tommy's straining eyes saw--saw the white face, the little body pressed against the swaying limb, saw the frantic arms clinging to the lofty perch, saw the whole tree moving dizzily back and forth against the stormy sky, as if in the hands of a giant who was trying to shake that tiny figure down.

The voice of the boy rang out shrill and clear above the tumult of the wind and the tearing leaves.

"Joe! You hear me, Joe, don't you?" The voice was quiet and sure now, the nerves of the man that was to be had steadied. Only grammar went all to pieces; it had been deteriorating these last twenty-four hours. A boy's grammar is a structure always ready to tumble, like a house of cards.

"They ain't no cop down here, Joe. We done sent him home. He's gone, Joe, honest he has. You know me, Joe. I wouldn't tell you no lie!"

Now the figure up there stirred. A small bare foot felt down and reached uncertainly, as if blown about by the wind, for a lower branch; a small hand that had clung to a glass of milk now clung to a limb above his head. Then Tommy saw that his father, with upraised face, was standing directly under that figure up there in the angry foliage.

"Steady, Joe, old scout!" said Earle.

"Don't talk to him, Papa," pleaded Tommy.

"He's right, Steve," spoke Mrs. Davis.

But once after this Tommy spoke.

"Joe! Try that un on the other side!"

Again they watched the foot feeling about. Again it found the limb. Once they saw him, like a bear cub, hug the trunk. Once he slid and fragments of bark came tumbling down. Closer to earth drew the small figure. They could hear the calloused little bare feet scraping the bark. Then, all of a sudden, Steve Earle had swung himself up by the lower branches. His strong arms reached upward and were lowered down to them, and from his fingers a gasping little figure slid to the ground.

It was still light enough to see the face. The grin with which he had started out in life to brave an unfriendly world was gone, and in its place was terror--terror of those awful heights, of that swaying tree, of night and storm, and now of these faces about him. The sturdy chest was rising and falling. He looked pitifully small, like a baby.

There came a blinding flash of lightning, and a clap of thunder that seemed to burst the woods open. In the momentary flash they saw his white face and dilated eyes.

Mrs. Davis had sunk to her knees, arms outstretched.

"Darling!" she cried. Tommy had heard his mother say it that way. Then he turned his head in a sort of embarrassment, for Joe had run into Mrs. Davis's arms, and Joe was sobbing on Mrs. Davis's ample bosom; and no gentleman, big or small, likes to witness his friend's emotions.

"I guess it's a go, Steve," said John Davis.

"Looks like it, John," replied Steve.