Part 27 (1/2)

Then a scream rang back to the man and girl before the cabin. Followed instantly a crash, an extinguishment of the light, darkness, silence, and finally a thin quivering flame at the base of the ledge, delicate and blue, like a dancing chimera.

Janet's hand reached out and closed in Steele Weir's, and he covered it with his other hand.

”Oh, how terrible!” she gasped. ”Did you see? The rock seemed to smite him!”

”Yes.”

”He must be dead.”

”You remain here and I'll go find out.”

He led her into the cabin and to a stool by the table, where resting her elbows on the board she pressed her hands over her eyes as if to blot out the sight she had just witnessed. After all she had suffered, the climax of this dreadful spectacle left her unnerved, weak, shuddering.

”Don't stay long,” she whispered. ”Come back as quick as you can. This cabin, this whole spot in the mountains, is awful. I can almost feel him hovering over me.”

”You mustn't permit such thoughts.” He gave her shoulder an encouraging pat. ”It will take but a few minutes to see if he's still alive and then we'll start home. You've been the bravest girl going and will continue to be, I know. Everything is over; nothing can happen to you now.”

Weir went out. He perceived that the wrecked car was fully afire by this time, its flames illuminating the granite ledge and the ground about. Evidently the machine's fuel tank had been smashed under the impact and the gasoline had escaped, preventing an explosion but fiercely feeding the blaze. He ran towards the place.

At first he did not find Sorenson, so that he supposed him buried beneath the wreckage, but presently he discovered his crumpled form lying jammed between the base of the ledge and a boulder. Weir lifted the limp figure from its resting place and bore it to open ground, where he made an examination of the still form. Clearly Sorenson had been pitched free of the car and crushed against the rock wall. His cap was missing; his coat was ripped up the back and a part of it gone as if caught and held by some obstruction in the car when he had been shot forth; blood and a great bruise marked one cheek; and the way his legs dragged when he was lifted up indicated some serious injury to those members. But the man still breathed.

”Miracles haven't ceased,” Weir muttered, when he had made sure of the fact. ”But his chance is slim at best.”

It would be false to say that the engineer felt compa.s.sion at the other's sudden catastrophe; he experienced none. On the contrary he had a sense of justice fittingly executed, as if, escaping bullets and man's blows, Sorenson had been felled by a more certain power, by the inevitable consequences of his own deeds and sins, by a wall of evil he himself had raised as much as by a wall of stone.

He searched the man's breast pocket, then hunted for the missing doc.u.ment among the stones and bushes. At last he gave up for the time further seeking, with a conviction that the vital paper was gone for good, destroyed in the fire of the burning car. But for his own over-confidence, his belief he had Sorenson a safe prisoner back there in the cabin, the sheets might be secure in his pocket. Well, it was too late now.

He again lifted the unconscious man in his arms and returned to the log house. Inside he laid him on the rude bed which Sorenson himself had spread with sheets and blankets.

”He's alive?” Janet asked, awed.

”Alive, but badly hurt.”

”You'll leave him here?”

”Yes, while I take you away. We could do nothing for him in any case; his injuries are grave and need a doctor's help. The best service we can perform in his behalf is to start your father or some other physician here as quickly as possible. He may live or he may die; that isn't in our hands. He's unconscious and not suffering, and probably will not feel pain for some hours if he does live, so we can go without feeling that we're robbing him of any of his chances of recovery. Your conscience may rest quite easy on that point. Come, we'll start at once. The quicker we reach your father, the quicker he will arrive here.”

When they were in his car he wrapped a robe about her against the sharp chill.

”I am cold; my teeth are chattering,” she said.

”You've been under a great strain. Just lie back and rest and think of something else than what has happened, if you can,” he urged.

”I'll try to.”

The lamps blazed out at his touch of the switch and the car began to move. She closed her eyes. She did not wish to see the scene of the smash, with the leaping fire and the horrible pile of crushed metal.

Indeed, she drew the robe before her face, where she kept it for some time.

”Are we past the place?” she asked, finally.