Page:Aladdin O'Brien (1902).pdf/147

 tient at being badly used by a neighborhood he knew so well, struggled on.

"Troubles," he said, "what sort of a storm is this anyway? Did you ever see anything quite like it round here? Because I never did. It must be like those things they have out West, when millions of poor little baa-sheeps and horses and cattles freeze to death. I'd hate to be a horse out in this, but I wish I had one. I—"

If, as a child, you have ever slipped, though only an inch, while climbing over roofs, you will know that sudden, stabbing, sinking feeling that came to Aladdin and stopped the beating of his heart by the hairbreadth of a second. He had been proceeding chin on breast, and head bent against the wind, or he would have seen it before, for it was a notable landmark in that part of the world, and showed him that he had been making way, not toward his destination, but toward the wilderness.

He gazed up at the great black blasted pine, its waist the height of a tall tree, and its two lonely lightning-scathed and