She was at his side. Her low, terror-stricken cry chilled his heart.
Was he dead? and was it his soul only, lingering in the body, that was cognizant of all this?
Her hand was on his pulse, then inside his vest against his heart.
"Oh," she moaned, "can he be dying or dead? I can"t find his pulse, nor does his heart seem to beat. He is so pale, so deathly pale, even to his lips."
He knew that she was lifting him into a different and easier position, and wondered at the muscular power she exerted, even under excitement.
"Why, why," she exclaimed in horror, "he is cold, strangely cold! His hands and brow are almost like ice, and wet with the dew of death."
She was not aware of the fact that extreme coldness and a clammy perspiration would be among the results of such a severe shock.
"Graydon," she gasped, "Graydon!" Then after a moment: "O G.o.d, if he should never know!"
She chafed his hands and wrists, opened the lunch basket, and found that the bottle containing water was not broken, for he felt drops dashed on his face, and his lips moistened; but the same stony paralysis enchained him. Then she sent out her voice for help, and there was agony, terror, and heart-break in her cry.
Realizing the futility of this on the lonely mountainside, she soon ceased, and again sought, with almost desperate energy, to restore him, crying and moaning meanwhile in a way that smote his heart. At last she threw herself on his breast with the bitter cry:
"Oh, Graydon, Graydon, are you dying? Will you _never_ know? Oh, my heart"s true love, shall I never have a chance to tell you that it was you I loved--you only! It was for you I went away alone to die, I feared. For you I struggled back to life, and toiled and prayed that I might be your fair ideal; and now you may never know. Graydon, Graydon, I would give you the very blood out of my heart--O G.o.d, I can"t restore him!" she moaned, in a choking voice, and then he knew from her dead weight upon his breast that she had fainted.
This mental anguish and the effort he put forth to respond to these words caused great beads of sweat to start out upon his face.
Suddenly, as if a giant hand was lifted, the effects of the shock resulting from his fall pa.s.sed away. He opened his eyes, and there was Madge, with her face buried upon his breast, in brief oblivion from fears that threatened to crush at once hope and life.
To his great joy he found that he could move. Feebly, and with great difficulty, he lifted her head and tried to regain his feet. He found this impossible, and soon realized that his leg was broken. He now saw that he must act wisely and carefully, or their plight would be serious indeed; and yet his mind was in such a tumult of immeasurable joy at his discovery that he would not in the least regret the accident, if a.s.sured of her safety.
At last, in response to his efforts, she began to revive. The sense of responsibility, the necessity for action on her part, had been so great immediately before she had fainted under the stress of one overwhelming fear, that her mind, even during unconsciousness, may have put forth effort to regain its hold upon sense. She found herself leaning against a prostrate tree, and Graydon sitting near, speaking to her in soothing and encouraging tones.
In response to her bewildered, troubled look of inquiry, he said, cheerfully, and in natural tones, "Don"t worry, Madge, or be frightened."
"What has happened, Graydon?"
"I"ll tell you what I know, and you must supply the rest. We were proceeding along that ledge above us, and trying to find a safe place to climb down."
A slow deep color began to take the place of her pallor, showing that her own memory was supplying all that had occurred.
"You know I fell, Madge. Thank G.o.d, I did not carry you down with me!"
"Any other man would," she said, almost brusquely. "You threw my hand back around a tree."
"Did I?" exclaimed Graydon, very innocently and gladly. "Well, everything became very confused after that. I must have been unconscious. I do remember grasping at the branches as I pa.s.sed through these low trees above us--"
"You must have caught one of them, Graydon," she said, eagerly, turning toward him again, "for a large limb had broken off and was lying upon you."
"Was it so? Perhaps I owe it a good turn, for it may have so broken my fall as to have saved my life. Well, in some way, you, true, brave little girl, you must have reached me, and, finding that you could not restore me, and imagining I was dead or dying, you fainted yourself from the nervous shock of it all. When I recovered the use of my senses I found evidence that you had been trying to revive me. Now, Madge, we must both be brave and sensible. We must regain the full possession of our wits as soon as possible. Can you be very brave and sensible (to use your favorite word) if I tell you something?"
"Yes, Graydon," she said. "I can do anything, now that I know you are going to live."
"I am very much alive, and shall be thoroughly conscious of the fact for some time to come. You must keep perfectly cool and rational, for what has happened is a very serious affair under the circ.u.mstances."
Her scarlet face was turned from him again. "Madge," he concluded, in quiet tones, "I"ve broken my leg."
"Is that all?" she said, with a look of intense relief.
"Isn"t that enough? I"m helpless."
"I"m not," and she sprang to her feet "Why, Graydon, it might have been a hundred-fold worse. I thought it was immeasurably worse," she said, suppressing a sob. "You might have been killed. See how far you fell! I feared you might have received some terrible internal injury--"
"I have; but that"s a chronic affair, as you know," he interrupted, laughing.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "SO YOU IMAGINE I SHALL SOON BE MAKING LOVE TO ANOTHER GIRL."]
His mirth and allusion did more to restore her than all else, for he appeared the same friend that she thought she had lost.
"Now that it is so evident that you will survive all your injuries,"
she resumed, with an answering laugh, "I am myself again. You direct me what to do."
"I shall, indeed, have to depend on you almost wholly; and the fact that another must look to you in such a strait will do more to keep you up than all cordials and stimulants. I can do very little myself--"
"Forgive me, Graydon. You know I am not indifferent. Are you in much pain?" and her voice was very gentle.
"Not yet. You must act contrary to your instincts for once, and exert all your ingenuity to attract attention. First, we must have a fire; meanwhile I shall light a cigar, which will help me to think and banish the impression that we are lost babes in the woods. The smoke, you see, will draw eyes to this spot--the smoke of the fire, I mean."
"I"m following you correctly."
"You must have followed me very bravely, heroic little woman that you are! You are indeed unlike other girls, who would never have reached me except by tumbling after--"
"Come, no more reminiscences till you are safe at the hotel, and your leg mended."
"Very well. I direct, but you command. As soon as we have a column of smoke ascending from this point you must try to find an open s.p.a.ce near here, and wave something white as a signal of distress."
He had scarcely concluded before she was at work. The prostrate tree against which he had managed to place her at such pain to his broken limb served as a back-log, and soon a column of smoke was ascending.
At times she would turn a shy, half-doubting, half-questioning glance at him, but he would smile so naturally and speak so frankly that the suspicion that he had heard her words almost pa.s.sed from her mind.
"Madge," he said, "in finding an outlook toward the hotel or valley, don"t go far away, if possible. It makes me awfully nervous to think of you climbing alone."
She found a projecting rock beneath them within calling distance, and on an extemporized pole she fastened the napkins. At his suggestion she waved them only downward and upward, at the same time sending out her powerful voice from time to time in a cry for help.
He, left alone, sometimes groaned from an unusually severe twinge of pain, and again laughed softly to himself over the situation. He knew that the question of their being sought and found was only one of time, and he would have been willing to have had all his bones broken should this have been needful to secure the knowledge which now thrilled his very soul with gladness. The past grew perfectly clear, and the pearl of a woman who had given herself to him so long ago gained a more priceless value with every moment"s thought, "Ah, sweet Madge! I"m the blessed idiot you loved and toiled for at Santa Barbara! I shouldn"t have believed that such a thing could happen in this humdrum world."
Nor would it seem that the attention of even a fraction of that great world could be obtained. The shadows of evening began to gather, and Madge, at Graydon"s call, returned, wearied and somewhat discouraged.
"Cheer up," he said. "It is only a question of time. We shall soon be missed, and our signals will be more effective when it is dark. See, we shall not starve. I have been getting supper for you. Keeping the remnants of our lunch wasn"t a bad idea, was it?"
"Keeping up your courage and mine is a better one. Graydon, I fear you are suffering very much."
"Oh, Madge, armies of men have broken their legs! That"s nothing but a little disagreeable prose, while this adventure with you is something to talk and laugh over all our lives. I"ve cut my boot off and bandaged my leg as well as I could, and am now hungry. That"s a good sign. I shall be positively hilarious if you make as good supper as this meagre spread permits. Take a little water, for your throat must be parched. You will have to drink it from the bottle, Pat"s fashion, for my rubber cup is broken."
"Indeed, a little water is all I want at present, and I must gather wood for the fire before it is darker."