He had often watched storms from a window:  but to be out in the very middle of one all alone was an adventure of the first magnitude.  The grandeur and terror of it clutched at his heart and thrilled along his nerves as the thunder went rumbling and grumbling off to the other end of the world, leaving the wood so quiet and still that the little hammers inside seemed almost as loud as the plop-plop of the first big raindrops on the leaves.  But, in spite of secret tremors, he wanted tremendously to hear the thunder speak again.  The childish feeling of pursuit was gone.  His legs that had been in such a fearful hurry, came to a sudden standstill; and he discovered, to his immense surprise, that he was back again——­

There lay the rug and the cushions under the downward sweeping branches with their cascades of bright new leaves.  No sign of Tara—­and the heavy drops came faster, though they hardly amounted to a shower.

Flinging down bow and arrows, he ran under the tree and peered up into a maze of silver grey and young green.  Still no sign.

“Tara!” he called.  “Are you there?”

“’Course I am.”  Her disembodied voice had a ring of triumph.  “I’m at the tipmost top.  It’s rather shaky, but scrumshous.  Come up—­quick!”

Craning his neck he could just see one leg and the edge of her frock.  Temptation tugged at him; but he could not bear to disobey his mother—­not because it was naughty, but it was her.

“I can’t—­now,” he called back.  “It’s late and it’s raining.  You must come down.”

“I will—­if you come up.”

“I tell you, I can’t!”

“Only one little minute, Roy.  The storm’s rolling away.  I can see miles and miles—­to Farthest End.”

Temptation tugged harder.  You couldn’t carry on an argument with one tan shoe and stocking and a flutter of blue frock, and he wanted badly to tell about the Golden Tusks.  Should he go on alone, or should he climb up and fetch her——?

The answer to that came from the top of the tree.  A crack, a rustle and a shriek from Tara, who seemed to be coming down faster than she cared about.

Another shriek.  “Oh, Roy!  I’m stuck!  Do come!”

Stuck!  She was dangling from the end of a jagged bough that had caught in her skirt as she fell.  There she hung ignominiously—­his High Tower Princess—­her hair floating like seaweed, her hands clutching at the nearest branches that were too pliable for support.  If her skirt should tear, or the bough should break——­

“Keep stuck!” he commanded superfluously; and like a squirrel he sped up the great beech, its every foothold as familiar to him as the ground he walked on.

But to release her skirt and give her a hand he must trust himself on the jagged bough, hoping it would bear the double weight.  It looked rather a dead one, and its sharp end was sticking through a hole in Tara’s frock.  He set foot on it cautiously and proffered a hand.