"I don"t think," she remarked, helping herself to a sandwich, "that anybody"s going to be cruel enough to make me do it."
"If I do it," said Holton, "no one else will ever have to try it again in winter. It will be like discovering the North Pole--there"s nothing in it for the second man."
"You"re not going to try it! Please don"t!" cried Mrs. Holton. "If you got hurt it would spoil the party for everybody."
"Don"t worry, Aunt Nellie. It"s as easy as walking home."
He was already throwing off his overcoat, measuring the height and choosing a place for his ascent.
Amid a chorus of protests and taunts he began climbing rapidly. Phil rose and watched him with sophisticated eyes as he began mounting. She saw at once that he had chosen the least fortunate place in the whole face of the declivity for an ascent. There were two or three faintly scratched paths, by which the adventurous sometimes struggled to the top, and she had herself experimented with all of them; but Holton had essayed the most precipitous and hazardous point for his attempt.
At the start he sprang agilely up the limestone which for a distance thrust out rough shelves with ladder-like regularity; and when this failed, he caught at the wild tangle of frozen shrubbery and clutched the saplings that had hopefully taken root wherever patches of earth gave the slightest promise of succor. As his difficulties increased a hush fell upon the spectators.
He accomplished half the ascent, and paused to rest, clinging with one hand to a slender maple. He turned and waved his cap, and was greeted with a cheer.
"Better let it go at that!" called one of the young men. "Come on back."
Charles flung down a contemptuous answer and addressed himself to the more difficult task beyond. Particles of ice and frozen earth detached by his upward scramble clattered down noisily. Withered leaves, shaken free from niches where the winds had gathered them, showered fitfully into the valley. He began drawing himself along by shrubs and young trees that covered a long outward curve in the face of the cliff. Those below heard the crackle of frozen twigs, and the swish of released boughs that marked his progress. Phil stood watching him with an absorbed interest in which fear became dominant. Better than the others Phil knew the perils of the cliff, the scant footholds offered by even the least formidable points in the rough surface.
He was rounding the bulging crag with its spa.r.s.e vegetation when, as he seemed to have cleared it safely, a sapling that he had grasped for a moment yielded, and he tumbled backward.
Those below could see his frantic struggles to check his descent as his body shot downward with lightning-like swiftness. A short clump of bushes caught and held him for an instant, then gave way, and they saw him struggling for another hold. Then a shelf of rock caught him. He lay flat for a moment afraid to move, and those below could not see him.
Then he sat up and waved his cap, and shouted that he was safe.
The awe-struck crowd hardly knew what Phil was doing until she had crossed the ice and begun to climb. While Charles was still crashing downward, she had run to a favorable point her quick eyes had marked and was climbing up a well-remembered trail. The snow and ice had increased its hazards, and an ominous crackling and snapping of twigs attended her flight.
"Come back! Come back!" they called to her. Half a dozen young men plunged after her; but already well advanced, she cried to them not to follow.
"Tell him to stay where he is," she called; and was again nimbly creeping upward. There was no way to arrest or help her, and she had clearly set forth with a definite purpose and could not be brought back.
Cries of horror marked every sound as her white sweater became the target of anxious eyes.
The white sweater paused, hung for tremulous instants, was lost and discernible again. A frozen clod, loosened as she clutched at the projecting roots of a young beech, ricocheted behind her. Her course, paralleling that taken by Holton, was about ten yards to the left of it.
To those below it seemed that her ascent was only doubling the hour"s peril. Charles, perched on the rock that had seemingly flung out its arm to save him, was measuring his chances of escape without knowing that Phil was climbing toward him.
As she drew nearer he heard the sounds of her ascent, and peering over saw the sweater dangling like a white ball from the cliff-side.
"Go down, Phil! You can"t make it; n.o.body can do it! Tell the boys to get a rope," he shouted. "Please go back!"
Already messengers had run for a.s.sistance, but the little canon in its pocket-like isolation was so shut in that it was a mile to the nearest house.
Along the tiny thread of a trail, transformed by sleet and snow until it was scarcely recognizable, Phil pressed on steadily. Charles, seeing that she would not go back, ceased his entreaties, fearing to confuse or alarm her. Her hands caught strong boughs with certainty; the tiny twigs slapped her face spitefully. Here and there she flung herself flat against the rocky surface and crept guardedly; then she was up dancing from one vantage-point to another, until finally she paused, clinging to a sapling slightly above Holton. When she had got her breath she called an "All right!" that echoed and reechoed through the valley.
"You thought you could do it, didn"t you?" she said mockingly; "and now I"ve had to spoil my clothes to get you off that shelf."
"For G.o.d"s sake, stay where you are! There"s nothing you can do for me.
The boys have gone round to bring a rope, and until they come you must stay right there!"
Phil, still panting, laughed derisively.
"You"re perfectly ridiculous--pinned to a rock like Prometheus--Simeon on his pillar! But it wouldn"t be dignified for you to let the boys haul you up by a rope. You"d never live that down. They"ll be years getting a rope; and it would be far from comfortable to sit there all night."
While she chaffed she was measuring distances and calculating chances.
The shelf which had caught him was the broader part of a long edge of outcrop. Phil beat among the bushes to determine how much was exposed, but the ledge was too narrow for a foothold.
"Please stop there and don"t move!" Holton pleaded. "If you break your neck, I"d never forgive myself, and I"d never be forgiven."
Phil laughed her scorn of his fears and began creeping upward again. The situation appealed to her both by reason of its danger and its humor; there was nothing funnier than the idea of Charlie Holton immured on a rock, waiting to be hauled up from the top of the cliff. She meant to extricate him from his difficulties: she had set herself the task; it was like a dare. Her quick eyes searching the rough slope noted a tree between her and the shelf where Holton clung, watching her and continuing his entreaties not to heed him, but to look out for her own safety. Its roots were well planted in an earthy cleft and its substantial air inspired confidence. It had been off the line of his precipitous descent and he had already tried to reach it; but in the cautious tiptoeing to which his efforts were limited by the slight margin of safety afforded by the rock he could not touch it.
"If I swing down from that tree and reach as far as I can, you ought to be able to catch my hand; and if you can I"ll pull, and you can make your feet walk pitty-pat up the side."
Her face, aglow from the climb, hung just above him. She had thrown off her hat when she began the ascent and her hair was in disorder. Her eyes were bright with excitement and fun. It was immensely to her liking--this situation: her blood sang with the joy of it. She addressed him with mocking composure.
"It"s so easy it isn"t right to take the money."
He protested that it was a foolish risk when he would certainly be rescued in a short time. She, too, must remain where she was until the ropes were brought.
"They never do that way in books," said Phil. "If I"d taken that tumble, some man would have rescued me; and now that you"re there, it"s only fair that I should pull you off. If I hadn"t as good as told you you couldn"t, you wouldn"t be there. That"s the simple philosophy of that.
All ready! Here goes!"
Clinging to the tree with her knees to get a better grip she swung herself down as far as possible. The sapling bent, but held stoutly.
Holton ceased protesting, held up his arms to catch her if she fell; then as she repeated her "ready," he tiptoed, but barely touched her finger-tips. She drew back slowly to gather strength for another effort.
It was the most foolhardy of undertakings. Only the tree, with its questionable hold upon the cliff-side, held her above the gorge. She strained her arms to the utmost; their finger-tips touched and she clasped his hand. There was a tense moment; then her aid making it possible, he dug his feet into the little crevices of the rocky surface and began creeping up.
Once begun there was no letting go. The maple under their combined weight curved like a bow. Phil set her teeth hard; her arms strained until it seemed they would break. Then, as Holton began to aid himself with his free hand, his weight diminished, and in one of these seconds of relief, Phil braced herself for a supreme effort and drew him toward her until he clutched the tree. He dragged himself up, and flung himself down beside her. Neither spoke for several minutes. Those of the party who remained below were now calling wildly to know what had happened.
"Trumpet the tidings that we are safe," said Phil when she had got her breath.
"That was awful; horrible! What did you do it for? It was so absurd--so unnecessary!" he cried, relief and anger mingling in his tone. "The horror of it--I"ll never get over it as long as I live."
"Forget it," said Phil. "It was just a lark. But now that it"s over, I"ll confess that I thought for about half a second--just before you began edging up a little--that I"d have to let go. But don"t you ever tell anybody I said so; that"s marked confidential."
The note was obviously forced. Her heart still pounded hard and weariness was written plainly in her face. Now that the stress of the half-hour had pa.s.sed, she was not without regret for what she had done.
Her father would not be pleased; her uncle would rebuke her sharply; her aunts would shudder as much at the publicity her wild adventure was sure to bring her as at the hazard itself. She was conscious of the admiration in Holton"s eyes; conscious, indeed, of something more than that.
"I want to know that you did that for me: I must think so!" he said hoa.r.s.ely.
His lips trembled and his hands shook. Her foolhardiness had placed both their lives in jeopardy. It pleased him to think that she had saved his life--whereas in strictest truth she had only added to his peril.
"I didn"t do it for you: I did it for fun," she replied shortly; and yet deep down in her heart she did not dislike his words or the intense manner in which he spoke them. Her dallyings with boys of her own age, with only now and then a discreet flirtation with one of the college seniors, comprised her personal experiences of romance.
"You are beautiful--wonderful! Yours is the bravest soul in the world. I loved you the day I first saw you in your father"s office. Phil--"
For a moment his hand lay upon hers that was trembling still from its grip of the tree.
"We must climb to the top; the joke will be spoiled if we let them help us," she cried, springing to her feet. "Come! The way will be easier along the old path."
Across the vale some one hallooed to them. Her white sweater was clearly printed against the cliff and a man on the edge of the farther side stood with the light of the declining sun playing round him. The ravine narrowed here and the distance across was not more than a hundred yards.