"Get out of here!" shouted the boy, angrily, as Patsy appeared at the foot of his stair.  
"I won't!" she answered indignantly. "I've come to speak to you about the mare¹, and you'll just treat me decently or I'll know the reason why!"
 
But he didn't wait to hear this explanation. He saw her advancing up the stairs, and fled in his usual hasty manner to the hall and up the ladder to the roof.
 
Patsy stepped back into the garden, vexed² at his flight, and the next instant she saw him appear, upon the sloping roof and start to run down the plank³.
 
Even as she looked the boy slipped, fell headlong, and slid swiftly downward. In a moment he was over the edge, clutching wildly at the plank, which was a foot or more beyond his reach. Headforemost he dove into space, but the clutching hand found something at last—the projecting hook of an old eaves-trough that had long since been removed—and to this he clung fast in spite of the jerk of his arrested body, which threatened to tear away his grip.
 
But his plight⁴ was desperate, nevertheless. He was dangling⁵ in space, the hard pavement thirty feet below him, with no possible way of pulling himself up to the roof again. And the hook was so small that there was no place for his other hand. The only way he could cling to it at all was to grasp his wrist with the free hand as a partial relief from the strain upon his arm.
 
"Hold fast!" called Patsy. "I'm coming."
 
She sprang up the steps, through the boy's room and into the hallway. There she quickly perceived the ladder, and mounted it to the roof. Taking in the situation at a glance she ran with steady steps down the sloping roof to where the plank lay, and stepped out upon it far enough to see the boy dangling beside her. Then she decided⁶ instantly what to do.
 
"Hang on!" she called, and returning to the roof dragged the end of the plank to a position directly over the hook. Then she lay flat upon it, an arm on either side of the plank, and reaching down seized one of the boy's wrists firmly in each hand.
 
"Now, then," said she, "let go the hook."
 
"If I do," answered the boy, his white face upturned to hers, "I'll drag you down with me."
 
"No you won't. I'm very strong, and I'm sure I can save you. Let go," she said, imperatively⁷.
 
"I'm not afraid to die," replied the boy, his voice full of bitterness. "Take away your hands, and I'll drop."
 
But Patsy gripped him more firmly than ever.
 
"Don't be a fool!" she cried. "There's no danger whatever, if you do just what I tell you."
 
His eyes met hers in a mute appeal; but suddenly he gained confidence, and resolved to trust her. In any event, he could not cling to the hook much longer.
 
He released his hold, and swung in mid-air just beneath the plank, where the girl lay holding him by his wrists.
 
"Now, then," she said, quietly, "when I lift you up, grab the edges of the plank."
 
Patricia's strength was equal to her courage, and under the excitement of that desperate moment she did what few other girls of her size could ever have accomplished⁸. She drew t............