Frank Merriwell's Champions Part 5

"By Jove! she's fainted!" he muttered, stirred by the sight. "She must be ill or hurt! I wonder who she is?"

He forgot his lazy lethargy, and scrambled up the path with a nimbleness that would have been surprising to his friends, and which took him to Nell Thornton's side in a very few moments.

"Blood on her hand and running down her arm!" he declared, with a gasp of astonishment. "Here's a mystery for you!"

Nell Thornton lay with eyes closed, motionless, and seemingly without life. To Bruce her condition appeared alarming. He lifted her head, then let it drop back, and stood up and looked dazedly about, wondering what he should do. He recollected that he had seen a small stream of water trickling over the rocks a short distance below.

"Just the thing!" he thought. "I'll carry her down there!"

As if she were a feather weight, he lifted her in his strong arms, and started down the path, moving in a hurry, now that his anxiety was thoroughly aroused.

"If the boys should see me now," he groaned, "I'd never hear the last of it. Luckily, they'll not be apt to see me. No doubt they are whanging away with their bows up on top of the hill. I wonder how she got hurt?

Could it have been--"

He stopped, and stared into the thin, pallid face.

"Could she have been hit by a wild arrow that missed the target and flew off into the woods? Heavens! I hope not!"

Down the steep path, slipping, sliding, maintaining his footing with difficulty, went Bruce Browning, with Nell Thornton in his arms, until he came to the rivulet he had seen gurgling over the rocks. There he put her down, as tenderly as if she were a sleeping child, and sought to make her comfortable by rolling up his coat and tucking it under her head and shoulders.

This done, he scooped up some of the water in his cap and began to bathe her hands in it, and to sprinkle it in her face.

But Nell Thornton was so slow to return to consciousness that Bruce was about to rip up the sleeve of her dress to ascertain the nature of the wound from which the blood still trickled, when she stirred uneasily.

Thus encouraged, he renewed his efforts, and a little later had the pleasure of seeing her eyes flutter open.

She stared in a puzzled way up into his face, then tried to get on her feet.

"Let me help you," Bruce begged, slipping an arm beneath her head.

"Whar-whar am I?" she demanded, putting up a hand protestingly.

"You are hurt, and you fell in the path up there, a little while ago,"

Bruce explained. "I brought you down here by the brook."

She looked at her hand, saw the blood, and made another effort to get on her feet.

She succeeded this time, standing panting and wild-eyed on the rocks.

"I'm not hurt ter speak on!" she a.s.serted. "I 'low ez how I must hev got dizzy-like an' fell, but I ain't hurt ter speak on."

She seemed about to start on down the path, but checked herself, with the feeling that perhaps something in the way of an acknowledgment was due this handsome stranger, and continued:

"I'm 'bleeged to you. 'Twas a acks'dent, the way it happened. I war behint the tree, an' they didn't see me tell I stepped out, an' then the arrer war a-comin', an' it war too late to be holped."

"Then one of the arrows struck you, as I feared!" growled Browning. "Do you think you are much hurt? Perhaps you had better make an examination.

The wound seems to be bleeding pretty freely."

She drew the sleeve down, as if to hide the telltale color.

"Plenty time fur that when I git home, which, ef I ever git thar, I'd better be humpin' myself along, too!"

Again she moved as if to start down the path, but was checked by Browning's words:

"You are in no condition to go alone, Miss-Miss--"

"My name's Nell Thornton," she said, coloring slightly, "ef that is what you mean. But these hyar mounting people don't waste no breath a-sayin'

of miss an' mister."

Still, Browning could see that she was pleased.

"Miss Thornton," he said, holding the cap, from which the water still dripped, "permit me to introduce myself. My name is Bruce Browning, and I belong with Frank Merriwell's party, which arrived in Glendale only the day before yesterday. We have become members of the Lake Lily Athletic Club since, and it may be that the arrow which struck you was shot by one of my friends, for they are taking part in the archery shoot up on the hill."

It was a very long speech for Bruce Browning, as he himself realized, but it slipped off his tongue very easily, under the circ.u.mstances.

"So I more than ever feel that it is my duty to a.s.sist you," he continued, "and to see that you reach home without further accident."

"I dunno what dad'll say 'bout that," she observed, shyly. "He allus declar's ez he ain't got no use fur citified people, with thar store clo'es, an' sich. So I reckon it'd be an uncommon good piece o' hoss sense ef you'd track back up the hill."

"No, I can't leave you that way," declared Browning, who, looking into her white face, saw that she was so weak she was again on the point of falling. "You are in no condition to go on alone, Miss Thornton. I can't permit it."

Then he squeezed the water out of his cap, got himself into his coat, and prepared to a.s.sist her down the hill and to her home.

Bob Thornton's cabin, the home of Nell Thornton, did not differ materially in its general aspect from other cabins Bruce Browning had seen in the mountains, except that it was larger. A bar of light from the descending sun fell through a wooded notch in the hills and lit up the small panes of its one window with a ruddy fire. A morning-glory, with closed petals, clambered up the rough stick-and-mud chimney, as if trying to hide its unsightliness, and a gourd vine swung its green, pear-shaped bulbs over the door.

Nell Thornton had seemed to gain strength as the journey continued, and had not often needed Bruce's helping hand, even where the way was rough.

Now she stopped in the doorway, as if she did not desire him to go further.

"I'm 'bleeged to ye!" she said, apparently at a loss for words with which to express her thanks. "My arm ain't hurtin' so much ez it did, an' dad's a master hand ter fix up a wound like that. I don't doubt it'll be all right by ter-morrer. I'm sorry you los' so much time a-troublin' with me."

"Don't mention it," begged Bruce. "I'm glad to have been of a.s.sistance."

Then he lifted his cap, and moved grumblingly away.

"Good-by!" she called, timidly.

Bruce turned and faced her.

"Good-by!" he said, again lifting his cap.

He saw her vanish into the cabin, and once more sought the blind path that led from the cabin up the mountain.

"It will be darker than a stack of black cats before I get back to the cottages," he growled. "What in thunder makes anybody want to live in such an out-of-the-way place as this?"

He had almost forgotten the chill which he feared was coming, but now he again drew the coat collar about his throat, and began to s.h.i.+ver, as he plodded on.

"That everlasting Arkansas malaria will be the death of me yet!" he groaned. "I feel just as if a lot of icicles were chasing up and down my spine. I wonder which one of the fellows it was shot that arrow?"