"Jump for your life!" commanded the professor.
Without an instant's hesitation, Budd crept to the cañon's brink and
peered below.
"All right!" he whispered. "Good-by, Dutch! We're free!"
And with a last grasp of the aspen tree he swung himself across the edge
and dropped.
The boys were mad enough to find no supper ready when they came from
timber line; but not surprised, for Budd was never one to give long
notice when he changed his habitation. And if somewhere on a high shelf
in an Eastern university--not Charbridge, by the way--there is still a
cube of red rock labeled "North Fork Cañon," it is the only memorial
left of the man without a pension.