Part 45 (1/2)

”Did they see us?” Patricia asked in a low, strained voice.

”I am afraid so.”

”They turned their boats towards the land. They are in the forest by now.”

”Yes.”

”And there is no doubt that they are the same. I saw the scarlet handkerchief upon the head of the mulatto.”

”Yes, they are the same.”

”They were such a little way from us. Oh, they may be upon us at any moment!”

”We are in great danger,” he answered gravely, ”but it is not so imminent as that. They were nearly a mile above us, and they have to land, to hide their boats and to find our trail, all of which will take time. We may count on having an hour's start of them, and we will do all in our power to increase it by breaking our trail as we are doing now.

Then we cannot be many leagues from the falls, and the post below them, or we may stumble at any moment upon some Monacan village which will not need our urging to fly out against the Ricahecrians. Please G.o.d, we will win through them yet.”

Somewhat comforted, she lay within his arms without speaking until they left the stream, when he set her down, and giving her his hand, ran with her over the fallen leaves down the long aisles of the forest.

Red gold showers fell upon them; fiery vines clutched at their feet, or, swinging from the trees, struck at their faces with vicious tendrils; the pines made the ground beneath like ice; rotting logs covered with gorgeous fungi barred their way; dark and poisonous swamps appeared before them, and had to be skirted--the forest leagued itself with its children and did them yeoman service.

The two aliens hastened breathlessly on. The sun climbed above the tree tops and looked down upon them through the half denuded branches. Midday came, and the short bright afternoon, and still they went fast through the woods, and still they heard no other sound than the rustle and sough of the leaves and the beating of their own hearts. They came to rising ground, and mounting it, found themselves upon a chinquepin ridge, and before them an abrupt descent of rain-washed, boulder-strewn earth. It was so nearly a precipice that Patricia shrunk back with an exclamation of dismay.

”I will go first,” said Landless. ”Give me your hands. So!”

Half way down, the earth began to slip. Patricia, looking up and over her shoulder, uttered a cry. A great boulder, imbedded in the earth directly above them, was dislodging itself, was falling! At her cry Landless raised his eyes, saw the threatening ma.s.s, caught her around the waist, and with one supreme effort swung her out of the path of the avalanche which descended the next moment, bearing him with it to the ground beneath.

He was recalled to consciousness by the dash of water against his face, and opened his eyes to behold Patricia bending over him, very white, with tragic eyes, and lips pressed closely together. She had run to the river, flowing through the suns.h.i.+ne a hundred yards away, for water, which she had brought back in his cap, and she had taken the kerchief from her neck, wet it, and laid it upon his forehead. Her hands were torn and bleeding. He saw them and uttered an exclamation. ”It is nothing,” she said; ”I had to move the rock.” Scarcely fully conscious as yet, his eyes glanced from her to the great rock which lay upon one side, and upon which there were bloodstains. ”I have had a bad fall,” he said unsteadily, but with an attempt to speak lightly because of the trouble in her eyes, ”but it is over. Come! we must hurry on. We have no time to lose.”

As he spoke he strove to rise, but with the effort came a pang of anguish, and he sank back, faint and sick, upon the ground.

”Ah! you cannot!” cried Patricia with a great sob in her voice. ”It is your foot. The rock fell upon it.”

After a moment of lying with closed eyes, he sat up and with his knife began to cut away the moccasin from the wounded limb. Presently he looked up. ”Yes, it is badly crushed. There is no doing anything with it.”

For many moments they gazed at each other in a despairing silence, broken by Patricia's low, ”What are we to do now?”

”We must go on,” answered Landless. ”It is death to stay here.”

Holding by the bank against which he had leaned, he dragged himself up and stood for an instant with eyes dark with pain; then, setting his lips, took a step forward. The bronze of his face paled, and beads of anguish stood upon his brow, but he took another step. Patricia, the tears running down her cheeks, came to him and put his arm around her shoulder. ”I will be your crutch,” she said, striving to smile. ”I will carry the gun, too.”

Before them was a steeply sloping, gra.s.s-grown ascent rising to a broken line of cliffs, scarred and gray, crowned with cedars and hung here and there with crimson creepers, and with a chance medley of huge gray boulders scattered about their base. Up this ascent they labored, so slowly that the crags seemed like the mountain in the Arabian tale, ever receding as they advanced. Twice Landless staggered and fell to his knee, but when, after what seemed an eternity of pain and distress, they reached the summit and Patricia would have had him rest, he shook his head and motioned with his hand towards the narrow, boulder-strewn plateau at the foot of the crags.

With her accustomed unquestioning obedience she turned towards the rocks, and after another interval of painful toil they found themselves in a sort of rocky chamber, a natural blockhouse, of which the sheer cliff formed one wall and boulders of varying height and shape the others.

Above them gleamed the blue sky; through the gaps between the rocks they looked down upon the s.h.i.+ning river and the parti-colored woods, and behind them towered the cliffs. A strong wind was blowing and it sent red leaves from the vines that draped the rock whirling down upon them.

”The tall gray crags,” said Patricia in a strange voice, ”and the Martinmas wind. The river flowing in the suns.h.i.+ne too.”