From Sand Hill to Pine Part 20

She colored so quickly that he knew she must have been conscious at the time, and he noticed now that the sleeve of her cloak, which had been half torn off her bare arm, was pinned together over it. When and how had she managed to do it without his detecting the act?

"At all events," she said coldly, "I'm glad you have not received greater injury from--your mule pack."

"I think we've both been very lucky," he said simply.

She did not reply, but remained looking furtively at the narrow trail.

Then she listened. "I thought I heard voices," she said, half rising.

"Shall I shout?" he asked.

"No! You say there's no use--there's only this way out of it!"

"I might go up first, and perhaps get a.s.sistance--a rope or chair," he suggested.

"And leave me here alone?" she cried, with a horrified glance at the abyss. "No, thank you! I should be over that ledge before you came back!

There's a dreadful fascination in it even now. No! I think I'd rather go--at once! I never shall be stronger as long as I stay near it; I may be weaker."

She gave a petulant little s.h.i.+ver, and then, though paler and evidently agitated, composed her tattered and dusty outer garments in a deft, ladylike way, and leaned back against the mountain side, He saw her also glance at his loosened s.h.i.+rt front and hanging neckerchief, and with a heightened color he quickly re-knotted it around his throat. They moved from the ledge toward the trail. Suddenly she started back.

"But it's only wide enough for ONE, and I never--NEVER--could even stand on it a minute alone!" she exclaimed.

He looked at her critically. "We will go together, side by side," he said quietly, "but you will have to take the outside."

"Outside!" she repeated, recoiling. "Impossible! I shall fall."

"I shall keep hold of you," he explained; "you need not fear that. Stop!

I'll make it safer." He untied the large bandanna silk handkerchief which he wore around his shoulders, knotted one end of it firmly to his belt, and handed her the other.

"Do you think you can hold on to that?"

"I--don't know,"--she hesitated. "If I should fall?"

"Stay a moment! Is your belt strong?" He pointed to a girdle of yellow leather which caught her tunic around her small waist.

"Yes," she said eagerly, "it's real leather."

He gently slipped the edge of the handkerchief under it and knotted it.

They were thus linked together by a foot of handkerchief.

"I feel much safer," she said, with a faint smile.

"But if I should fall," he remarked, looking into her eyes, "you would go too! Have you thought of that?"

"Yes." Her previous charming smile returned. "It would be really Jack and Jill this time."

They pa.s.sed out on the trail. "Now I must take YOUR arm," he said laughingly; "not you MINE." He pa.s.sed his arm under hers, holding it firmly. It was the one he had touched. For the first few steps her uncertain feet took no hold of the sloping mountain side, which seemed to slip sideways beneath her. He was literally carrying her on his shoulder. But in a few moments she saw how cleverly he balanced himself, always leaning toward the hillside, and presently she was able to help him by a few steps. She expressed her surprise at his skill.

"It's nothing; I carry a pail of water up here without spilling a drop."

She stiffened slightly under this remark, and indeed so far overdid her attempt to walk without his aid, that her foot slipped on a stone, and she fell outward toward the abyss. But in an instant his arm was transferred from her elbow to her waist, and in the momentum of his quick recovery they both landed panting against the mountain side.

"I'm afraid you'd have spilt the pail that time," she said, with a slightly heightened color, as she disengaged herself gently from his arm.

"No," he answered boldly, "for the pail never would have stiffened itself in a tiff, and tried to go alone."

"Of course not, if it were only a pail," she responded.

They moved on again in silence. The trail was growing a little steeper toward the upper end and the road bank. Bray was often himself obliged to seek the friendly aid of a manzanita or thornbush to support them.

Suddenly she stopped and caught his arm. "There!" she said. "Listen!

They're coming!"

Bray listened; he could hear at intervals a far-off shout; then a nearer one--a name--"Eugenia." So that was HERS!

"Shall I shout back?" he asked.

"Not yet!" she answered. "Are we near the top?" A sudden glow of pleasure came over him--he knew not why, except that she did not look delighted, excited, or even relieved.

"Only a few yards more," he said, with an unaffected half sigh.

"Then I'd better untie this," she suggested, beginning to fumble at the knot of the handkerchief which linked them.

Their heads were close together, their fingers often met; he would have liked to say something, but he could only add: "Are you sure you will feel quite safe? It is a little steeper as we near the bank."

"You can hold me," she replied simply, with a superbly unconscious lifting of her arm, as she yielded her waist to him again, but without raising her eyes.

He did,--holding her rather tightly, I fear, as they clambered up the remaining slope, for it seemed to him as a last embrace. As he lifted her to the road bank, the shouts came nearer; and glancing up, he saw two men and a woman running down the hill toward them. He turned to Eugenia. In that instant she had slipped the tattered dust-coat from her shoulder, thrown it over her arm, set her hat straight, and was calmly awaiting them with a self-possession and coolness that seemed to shame their excitement. He noticed, too, with the quick perception of unimportant things which comes to some natures at such moments, that she had plucked a sprig of wild myrtle from the mountain side, and was wearing it on her breast.

"Goodness Heavens! Genie! What has happened! Where have you been?"

"Eugenia! this is perfect madness!" began the elder man didactically.

"You have alarmed us beyond measure--kept the stage waiting, and now it is gone!"

"Genie! Look here, I say! We've been hunting for you everywhere. What's up?" said the younger man, with brotherly brusqueness.

As these questions were all uttered in the same breath, Eugenia replied to them collectively. "It was so hot that I kept along the bank here, while you were on the other side. I heard the trickle of water somewhere down there, and searching for it my foot slipped. This gentleman"--she indicated Bray--"was on a little sort of a trail there, and a.s.sisted me back to the road again."

The two men and the woman turned and stared at Bray with a look of curiosity that changed quickly into a half contemptuous unconcern. They saw a youngish sort of man, with a long mustache, a two days' growth of beard, a not overclean face, that was further streaked with red on the temple, a torn flannel s.h.i.+rt, that showed a very white shoulder beside a sunburnt throat and neck, and soiled white trousers stuck into muddy high boots--in fact, the picture of a broken-down miner. But their unconcern was as speedily changed again into resentment at the perfect ease and equality with which he regarded them, a regard the more exasperating as it was not without a suspicion of his perception of some satire or humor in the situation.

"Ahem! very much obliged, I am sure. I--er"--

"The lady has thanked me," interrupted Bray, with a smile.

"Did you fall far?" said the younger man to Eugenia, ignoring Bray.

"Not far," she answered, with a half appealing look at Bray.

"Only a few feet," added the latter, with prompt mendacity, "just a little slip down."

The three new-comers here turned away, and, surrounding Eugenia, conversed in an undertone. Quite conscious that he was the subject of discussion, Bray lingered only in the hope of catching a parting glance from Eugenia. The words "YOU do it," "No, YOU!" "It would come better from HER," were distinctly audible to him. To his surprise, however, she suddenly broke through them, and advancing to him, with a dangerous brightness in her beautiful eyes, held out her slim hand. "My father, Mr. Neworth, my brother, Harry Neworth, and my aunt, Mrs. Dobbs," she said, indicating each one with a graceful inclination of her handsome head, "all think I ought to give you something and send you away. I believe that is the way they put it. I think differently! I come to ask you to let me once more thank you for your good service to me to-day--which I shall never forget." When he had returned her firm handclasp for a minute, she coolly rejoined the discomfited group.