CHAPTER VI.

RED RIDING HOOD.

E stared at each other, Bessie and
I, in a real fright. Syd laughed.

6

Oh, I made a mistake, that's all,'

he said. 'We must go back.'

'I can't go back,' said Bessie; 'I'm too tired.

I shall stay here and die.'

་

'I wouldn't, if I were you,' said Syd.

'Don't

you know that there is a hidden volcano under this Tor, like Vesuvius, and that it is expected to burst out into flames any day?'

'You're joking,' said Bessie, sitting up straight, and looking alarmed.

'No, I'm not, really. That's how all these great stones came tumbling about the sides of

the Tor.

There was an earthquake or some

thing one day.'

'Long ago?' asked Bessie.

I don't know exactly when,' said Syd; 'but you'd better come on quickly, in case another should happen.'

'If I had known that before, I wouldn't have come here to-day,' said Bessie. I could not help feeling very uncomfortable too, for I knew all about Vesuvius, and Syd was so grave that I could not think he was joking.

We turned round, and began to climb back again. It seemed to be lost time, for we were wandering on and on without knowing in the least where we were.

On, on we went; now we had got out of the boulders, now we had come among the heath and the gorse and the bracken, but we could not see anything that looked like the Goat's Tor. There were several other hills round us, and we could not tell which it was. We had lost our way, Bessie and I were really

without any doubt.

frightened. My heart beat so fast I could hardly speak; and Syd kept us in a continual state of

fear too, for he would run away out of sight, and then we were alone in that wild vast place. He came back, however, always; but then he would keep jumping up on every rock we passed, and turning head over heels over it.

Once he gave us a dreadful fright. There are some deep holes in some parts of the moor, so deep that you cannot see to the bottom of them. They are old mines, Aunt Gommie says; and she had warned us to be very careful not to go near them. Syd was at one of his antics, jumping about over the tumps on the moor, when all of a sudden he rolled down out of our sight, and we heard him scream as he did so. O how we ran! I thought of the old mine shafts directly. We had passed one a little while before. As we ran, I gasped out to Bessie, 'He's fallen into a pit! I'm sure he has.'

And what do you think it was, after all ?

It was only a scream of delight at the discovery of a dirty black pond full of tadpoles and newts, over which we found him stooping, catching the horrid things in his hands. It was too bad of him!

'Give us your handkerchief, Lol,' he said, coolly, 'to put them in. Did you ever see such beauties ?'

'You may have my handkerchief,' I said, ‘but you don't think I am going to carry the creatures !'

'Oh, they will do very well in my pocket,' he answered; and he took my clean handkerchief and put a lump of mud in it, and then some of those horrid wagglers out of the pond. Bessie screamed, and ran a little way off, and when Syd saw this, he took up one of the newts by the tail and ran after her with it, and there was such a scene! It ended by the newt slipping out of his hand and being lost among the heath, where I suppose it died, poor thing.

'Well,' I said at last, are we ever going back to Aunt Gommie? Syd, how can you stay here playing when you know we are lost?'

Bessie began to cry.

'Come on,' said Syd, ' don't blub, for goodness' sake, Betty! If I've lost If I've lost you, I'll find you again

by and by, all right. Come on up to the top here, and let us take a look.'

a

We climbed on one of the highest mounds, but could see nothing that we knew. The only thing we saw was a little hut at some distance,shepherd's hut, Syd thought. Smoke was curling out of the chimney, which made us think that some one was there, and we settled that we would go and see if we could find any one to tell us the way to Goat's Tor.

The hope of this made us quicken our steps. In the hut we found an old man, crooning over the fire. He seemed very much surprised to see us. Syd went forward and spoke to him, but Bessie and I shrunk back in the doorway, for we thought he looked rather wild, and Bessie whispered to me,

Suppose he should be a gipsy, and try to steal us!'

I whispered back,—

'Syd would fight, and so could I, for that matter. We would protect you, Bessie!'

But I felt rather uneasy for all that, and not much relieved when the man got up and came out of the hut, saying he would show us the way.

Suppose he should play us some trick!' I

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