Sunny Slopes Part 31

"When did she go?" he asked.

"About eleven. She wasn't coming home until after dinner."'

"How far was she going?"

"A long way, she said. She went that direction," Carol pointed out to the right.

"Is it going to storm?" asked David, coming up.

"Yes, it is. But don't you worry, Mrs. Duke. I'll get her all right.

If it turns bad, I will take her to some little village or farm-house where she can stay till morning. We'll be all right, and don't you worry."

There was something very a.s.suring in the hearty voice, something consoling in his clear eyes and broad shoulders. Carol followed him out to his horse.

"Prince," she said, smiling up at him, "you will get her, won't you?"

"Of course I will. You aren't worrying, are you?"

"Not since you got home," said Carol. "I know you will get her. I like you, Prince."

"Do you?" He was boyishly pleased. "Does--does David?"

Carol laughed. "Yes, and so does Julia," she teased.

Prince laughed, too, shamefacedly, but he dared not ask, "Does Connie?"

He turned his horse quickly and paused to say, "You'd better get your husband inside. He will chill in spite of the rugs. It is winter, to-night. Good-by."

"He will get her," said Carol confidently, when she returned to David.

"He is nice, don't you think so? Maybe he would be perfectly all right--in the city. Connie could straighten him out."

"Yes, brush off the dust, and give him an opera hat and a dinner coat and he would not be half bad."

"He is not half bad now, only--not exactly our kind."

"Women are funny," said David slowly. "I believe Connie likes his kind, just as he is, and would not have him changed for anything."

At first, Prince had no difficulty in following the wide roll of Connie's wheels, for no other cars had gone that way. But once or twice he had to drop from the saddle and examine the tracks closely to make sure of her.

Then came the snow, and the tracks were blurred out. Prince was in despair.

"Three roads here," he thought rapidly. "If she took that one she will come to Marker's ranch, and be all right. If she took the middle road she will make Benton. But this one, it winds and twists, and never gets any place."

So on the road to the left, that led to no place at all, Prince carefully guided his weary horse, already beginning to stumble. He sympathized with every aching step, yet he urged her gently to her best speed. Then she slipped, struggled to regain her footing, struck a treacherous bit of ice, and fell, Prince swinging nimbly from the saddle. Plainly she was unable to carry him farther, so he helped her to her feet and turned her loose, pus.h.i.+ng on as fast as he could on foot.

Anxiously he peered into the gathering darkness, longing for the long flash of yellow light which meant Connie and the matchless Harmer.

Suddenly he stopped. From away over the hills to his right, mingling with the call of the coyotes, came the unmistakable honk of a siren. He held his breath to listen. It came again, a long continued wail, in perfect tune with the whining of the coyotes. He turned to the right and started over the hills in the wake of the call.

Over a steep incline he plunged, and paused.

"Thank G.o.d," he cried aloud, for there he saw a little round yellow glow in the cloudy white mist,--the Harmer Six, and Connie.

He shouted as he ran, that she might not be left in suspense a moment longer than need be. And Connie with numbed fingers tugged the curtains loose and leaned out in the yellow mist to watch him as he came.

We talk of the mountain peaks of life. And poets sing of the snowy crest of life crises, where we look like angels and speak like G.o.ds, where we live on the summit of ages. This moment should have been a summit, yet when Prince ran down the hill, breathless, exultant, and nearly exhausted, Connie, her face showing peaked and white in the yellow glare, cried, "h.e.l.lo, Prince, I knew you'd make it."

She held out a half-frozen hand and he took it in his.

"Car's busted," she said laconically. "Won't budge. I drained the water out of the radiator."

"All right, we'll have to hoof it," he said cheerfully.

He relieved her of the heavier wraps, and they set out silently through the snow, Prince still holding her hand.

"I am awfully glad to see you," she said once, in a polite little voice.

He smiled down upon her. "I am kind o' glad to see you, too, Connie."

After a while she said slowly, "I need wings. My feet are numb." And a moment later, "I can not walk any farther."

"It is ten miles to a house," he told her gravely. "I couldn't carry you so far. I'll take you a mile or so, and you will get rested."

"I am not tired, I am cold. And if you carry me I will be colder. You just run along and tell Carol I am all right--"

"Run along! Why, you would freeze."

"Yes, that is what I mean."

"There is a railroad track half a mile over there. Can you make that?"

Connie looked at him pitifully. "I can not even lift my feet. I am utterly stuck. I kept stepping along," she mumbled indistinctly, "and saying, one more,--just one more,--one more,--but the foot would not come up,--and I knew I was stuck."

Her voice trailed away, and she bundled against him and closed her eyes.

Prince gritted his teeth and took her in his arms. Connie was five feet seven, and very solid. And Prince himself was nearly exhausted with the day's exertion. Sometimes he staggered and fell to his knees, sometimes he hardly knew if he was dragging Connie or pus.h.i.+ng her, or if they were both blown along by the wind. Always there was the choke in his throat, the blur in his eyes, and that almost unbearable drag in every muscle. A freight train pa.s.sed--only a few rods away. He thought he could never climb that bank. "One more--one--more--one more," mumbled Connie in his ear.

He shook himself angrily. Of course he could make that bank,--if he could only rest a minute,--he was not cold,--just a minute's rest to get his breath again--a moment would be enough. G.o.d, what was he thinking of? It was not weariness, it was the chill of the night that demanded a moment's rest. He strained Connie closer in his arms and struggled up the bank.

At the top, he dropped her beside the track, and fell with her. For a moment the fatal languor possessed him.

A freight train rounded the curve and came puffing toward them. Prince, roused by springing hope, clambered to his feet, pulling the little pocket flash from his pocket. He waved it imploringly at the train, but it thundered by them.

Resolutely bestirring himself, he carried Connie to a sheltered place where the wind could not strike her, and wrapped her as best he could in his coat and sweater. Then, lowering his head against the driving wind, he plunged down the track in the face of the storm.

CHAPTER XXII