What was there about this slender
stripling which so disarmed criticism?
"Yes," he replied, "I am going down. I doubt if I
shall find anything there; but if I do it is better to come
upon it when I am looking for it than to have it come
upon us when we are not expecting it. If there is to be
any hunting I prefer to be hunter rather than hunted."
He wheeled and placed a foot upon the cellar stairs.
The youth followed him.
"What are you going to do?" asked the man.
"I am going with you," said the boy. "You think I am
a coward because I am afraid; but there is a vast differ-
ence between cowardice and fear."
The man made no reply as he resumed the descent of
the stairs, flashing the rays of the lamp ahead of him;
but he pondered the boy's words and smiled as he ad-
mitted mentally that it undoubtedly took more courage
to do a thing in the face of fear than to do it if fear were
absent. He felt a strange elation that this youth should
choose voluntarily to share his danger with him, for in
his roaming life Bridge had known few associates for
whom he cared.
The beams of the little electric lamp, moving from
side to side, revealed a small cellar littered with refuse
and festooned with cob-webs.
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