The boys had to help the girls up the steeper places, with all their independence, and even Ann admitted that their male comrades were “rather handy to have about.”

The old pine tree sprang out of a little hollow in the hill.  Behind it was the peak of the island, and from this highest spot the party obtained an unobstructed view of the whole western end of Tallahaska.

“It’s one big old lake,” sighed Isadore Phelps.  “If it would only just freeze over, boys, and give us a chance to try out the iceboats!”

“If it keeps on being as cold as it was this morning, and the wind dies down, there’ll be all the ice you want to see to-morrow,” declared Ralph Tingley.  “Goodness! let’s get down from this exposed place.  I’m ’most frozen.”

“Shall we stop and make a fire here, girls, and warm up before we return?” asked Tom Cameron.

“And draw that constable right to this place where you want to leave Jerry’s tin box?” cried his sister.  “No, indeed!”

“We’d better keep moving, anyway,” Ruth urged.  “Less danger of frost-bite.  The wind is keen.”

Tom had already placed the box of food in a sheltered spot.  “The meat will be frozen as solid as a rock, I s’pose,” he grumbled.  “I hope that poor fellow has some way of making a fire in his hide-out.”

They began to retrace their steps.  Instead of following exactly the same path they had used in climbing to the summit, Tom struck off at an angle, believing he saw an easier way.

His companions followed him in single file.  Ruth happened to be the last of all to come down the smooth slope.  The seven ahead of her managed to tramp quite a smooth track through the snow, and once or twice she slipped in stepping in their footprints.

“Look out back there, Ruthie!” called Tom, from the lead.  “The snow must have got balled on your boots.  Knock it off——­”

His speech was halted by a startled cry from Ruth.  She felt herself going and threw out both hands to say her sudden slide.

But there was nothing for her hands to seize save the unstable snow itself.  She fell on her side, and shot out from the narrow track her companions had trod.

“Ruth!” shrieked Helen, in the wildest kind of dismay.

But the girl of the Red Mill was already out of reach.  The drifting snow had curled out over the brink of the tall rock across the brow of which Tom had unwisely led the way.  They had not realized they were so near the verge of the precipice.

Ruth’s body was solid, and when she fell in the snow the undercrust broke like an eggshell.  Amid a cloud of snow-dust she shot over the yawning edge of the chasm and disappeared.

Several square yards of the snow-drift had broken away.  At their very feet fell the unexpected precipice.  The boys and girls shrank back from the peril with terrified cries, clinging to each other.

“She is killed!” moaned Helen, and covered her face with her mittened hands.