The Chalice Of Courage Part 13

"And how came I here?"

"I was lucky enough to pull you out."

"Did you jump into the flood for me?"

The man nodded.

"That's twice you have saved my life this day," said the girl, forcing herself woman-like to the topic that she hated.

"It's nothing," deprecated the other.

"It may be nothing to you, but it is a great deal to me," was the answer. "And now what is to be done?"

"We must get out of here at once," said the man. "You need shelter, food, a fire. Can you walk?"

"I don't know."

"Let me help you." He rose to his feet, reached down to her, took her hands in the strong grasp of his own and raised her lightly to her feet in an effortless way which showed his great strength. She did not more than put the weight of her body slightly on her left foot when a spasm of pain shot through her, she swerved and would have fallen had he not caught her. He sat her gently on the rock.

"My foot," she said piteously. "I don't know what's the matter with it."

Her high boots were tightly laced of course, but he could see that her left foot had been badly mauled or sprained, already the slender ankle was swelling visibly. He examined it swiftly a moment. It might be a sprain, it might be the result of some violent thrust against the rocks, some whirling tree trunks might have caught and crushed her foot, but there was no good in speculating as to causes; the present patent fact was that she could not walk, all the rest was at that moment unimportant. This unfortunate accident made him the more anxious to get her to a place of shelter without delay. It would be necessary to take off her boot and give the wounded member proper treatment. For the present the tight shoe acted as a bandage, which was well.

When the man had withdrawn himself from the world, he had inwardly resolved that no human being should ever invade his domain or share his solitude, and during his long sojourn in the wilderness his determination had not weakened. Now his consuming desire was to get this woman, whom fortune--good or ill!--had thrown upon his hands, to his house without delay. There was nothing he could do for her out there in the rain. Every drop of whiskey was gone; they were just two half-drowned, sodden bits of humanity cast up on that rocky sh.o.r.e, and one was a helpless woman.

"Do you know where your camp is?" he asked at last.

He did not wish to take her to her own camp, he had a strange instinct of possession in her. In some way he felt he had obtained a right to deal with her as he would; he had saved her life twice, once by chance, the other as the result of deliberate and heroic endeavor, and yet his honor and his manhood obliged him to offer to take her to her own people if he could. Hence the question, the answer to which he waited so eagerly.

"It's down the canon. I am one of Mr. Robert Maitland's party."

The man nodded. He didn't know Robert Maitland from Adam, and he cared nothing about him.

"How far down?" he asked.

"I don't know; how far is it from here to where you--where--where we--"

"About a mile," he replied quickly, fully understanding her reason for faltering.

"Then I think I must have come at least five miles from the camp this morning."

"It will be four miles away then," said the man.

The girl nodded.

"I couldn't carry you that far," he murmured half to himself. "I question if there is any camp left there anyway. Where was it, down by the water's edge?"

"Yes."

"Every vestige will have been swept away by that, look at it," he pointed over to the lake.

"What must we do?" she asked instantly, depending upon his greater strength, his larger experience, his masculine force.

"I shall have to take you to my camp."

"Is it far?"

"About a mile or a mile and a half from here."

"I can't walk that far."

"No, I suppose not. You wouldn't be willing to stay here while I went down and hunted for your camp?"

The girl clutched at him.

"I couldn't be left here for a moment alone," she said in sudden fever of alarm. "I never was afraid before, but now--"

"All right," he said, gently patting her as he would a child, "we'll go up to my camp and then I will try to find your people and--"

"But I tell you I can't walk!"

"You don't have to walk," said the man.

He did not make any apology for his next action, he just stooped down and disregarding her faint protests and objections, picked her up in his arms. She was by no means a light burden, and he did not run away with her as the heroes of romances do. But he was a man far beyond the average in strength, and with a stout heart and a resolute courage that had always carried him successfully through whatever he attempted, and he had need of all his qualities, physical and mental, before he finished that awful journey.

The woman struggled a little at first, then finally resigned herself to the situation; indeed, she thought swiftly, there was nothing else to do; she had no choice, she could not have been left alone there in the rocks in that rain, she could not walk. He was doing the only thing possible. The compulsion of the inevitable was upon them both.

They went slowly. The man often stopped for rest, at which times he would seat her carefully upon some prostrate tree, or some rounded boulder, until he was ready to resume his task. He did not bother her with explanation, discussion or other conversation, for which she was most thankful. Once or twice during the slow progress she tried to walk, but the slightest pressure on her wounded foot nearly caused her to faint. He made no complaint about his burden and she found it after all pleasant to be upheld by such powerful arms; she was so sick, so tired, so worn out, and there was such a.s.surance of strength and safety in his firm hold of her.

By and by, in the last stage of their journey, her head dropped on his shoulder and she actually fell into an uneasy troubled sleep. He did not know whether she slumbered or whether she had fainted again. He did not dare to stop to find out, his strength was almost spent; in this last effort the strain upon his muscles was almost as great as it had been in the whirlpool. For the second time that day the sweat stood out on his forehead, his legs trembled under him. How he made the last five hundred feet up the steep wall to a certain broad shelf perhaps an acre in extent where he had built his hut among the mountains, he never knew; but the last remnant of his force was spent when he finally opened the unlatched door with his foot, carried her into the log hut and laid her upon the bed or bunk built against one wall of the cabin.

Yet the way he put her down was characteristic of the man. That last vestige of strength had served him well. He did not drop her as a less thoughtful and less determined man might have done; he laid her there as gently and as tenderly as if she weighed nothing, and as if he had carried her nowhere. So quiet and easy was his handling of her that she did not wake up at once.

So soon as she was out of his arms, he stood up and stared at her in great alarm which soon gave way to rea.s.surance. She had not fainted; there was a little tinge of color in her cheek that had rubbed up against his rough wet shoulder; she was asleep, her regular breathing told him that. Sleep was of course the very best medicine for her and yet she should not be allowed to sleep until she had got rid of her wet clothing and until something had been done for her wounded foot. It was indeed an embarra.s.sing situation.

He surveyed her for a few moments wondering how best to begin. Then realizing the necessity for immediate action, he bent over and woke her up. Again she stared at him in bewilderment until he spoke.

"This is my house," he said, "we are home."

"Home!" sobbed the girl.

"Under shelter, then," said the man. "You are very tired and very sleepy, but there is something to be done. You must take off those wet clothes at once, you must have something to eat, and I must have a look at that foot, and then you can have your sleep out."

The girl stared at him; his program, if a radical one under the circ.u.mstances, was nevertheless a rational one, indeed the only one. How was it to be carried out? The man easily divined her thoughts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Wait! I am a woman, absolutely alone, entirely at your mercy"]

"There is another room in this house, a store room, I cook in there," he said. "I am going in there now to get you something to eat, meanwhile you must undress yourself and go to bed."