"That's Hunchie Slattery!" gasped Betty. "What a chance he is taking!"
For everything was sheathed in ice from the effect of the rain and frost of the night before. That timber was as slippery as glass.
Ida Bellethorne set off on a run for the barn; but unlike Bobby she did not say a word. Had she thought of any way to help the crooked little man, however, she was too late. Hunchie suddenly slipped, clutched vainly at the rope, which gave under his weight, and he came down "on the run."
The rope undoubtedly broke his fall. He would have been killed had he plunged immediately to the frozen ground beneath.
As it was, when the three girls reached him, he was unconscious and it was plain by the attitude in which he lay that his leg was broken.
