He had halted his mare at the edge of an abrupt chasm. It did not appear
to be fifty feet across, yet its depth must have been nearly two
hundred to where the hidden mountain-stream, of which it was the banks,
alternately slipped, tumbled, and fell with murmuring and monotonous
regularity. One or two pine-trees growing on the opposite edge, loosened
at the roots, had tilted their straight shafts like spears over the
abyss, and the top of one, resting on the upper branches of a sycamore a
few yards from him, served as an aerial bridge for the passage of a boy
of fourteen to whom Mr. Hamlin's challenge was addressed.
The boy stopped midway in his perilous transit, and, looking down upon
the horseman, responded, coolly, "Hullo, yourself!"
"Is that the only way across this infernal hole, or the one you prefer
for exercise?" continued Hamlin, gravely.
The boy sat down on a bough, allowing his bare feet to dangle over the
dizzy depths, and critically examined his questioner.
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