"Heavens, she is killed!" thought Frank, leaping up and running toward
the fallen girl.
There were excited exclamations from the group of archers, and a sound
of hurrying footsteps.
Frank saw the girl struggle into a sitting posture and pluck away the
arrow, which seemed to have lodged in the upper part of her left arm or
in her shoulder. Then she staggered to her feet. When he gained her side
she was trembling violently, and her thin face was as white as the face
of the dead.
Only a glance was needed to tell him that she was the daughter of one of
the poor whites of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her dress was of faded
cotton, her shoes heavy and coarse. In one hand she clutched a calico
sunbonnet, which had dropped from her head as she fell.
"You are hurt!" gasped Merriwell. "Will you not let me assist you in
some way?"
She shivered and gave him a quick glance, then stared toward the lads
who were rushing in that direction. The sight galvanized her into
activity.
"I dunno ez I've any call ter be helped!" she asserted, starting back
and giving a last look at the arrow, which lay on the grass at her feet,
where she had flung it as if it were a snake. "Leastways, I 'low ez how
I kin make my way home. I war a good 'eal more skeered than hurt."
"But I saw the arrow strike you!" Merriwell persisted.
She put out her hands as if to keep him from coming nearer, then sprang
back into the path, and vanished behind the tree and into the depths of
the woods before he could do aught to prevent the movement.
"She's gone," said Frank, as the others came up on the run. "There's the
arrow. I saw her pluck it out of her arm or shoulder, but she would not
stay to explain how badly she was hurt."
"That is Bob Thornton's girl, Nell," said Hammond, in a shaky voice. "I
hope she isn't much hurt. That was an awkward slip I made, and if I had
killed her I could never have forgiven myself."
Merriwell gave him a quick and comprehensive glance. It was caught by
Hammond, and served to increase his agitation.
"It was a very awkward slip, as you say, Mr. Hammond. That arrow might
have killed me. It would certainly have struck me, if I hadn't dropped
as I did."
"Accidents will happen, you know!" pleaded Hammond. "I hope you don't
think I would do such a thing on purpose. It was a slip, just as when
Dunnerwust shot the arrow into your nigger's cap."
He was about to say more, but checked himself, in the fear that he was
beginning to protest too much.
"Perhaps we'd better gollow the firl--I mean follow the girl," suggested
Rattleton. "She may have tumbled down again."
He did not wait for an order, but sprang into the path that led behind
the tree, and hurried along it, with a half dozen curious fellows at his
heels.
It was soon evident that the girl had not stuck to the path, which would
have taken her back toward the village, but had plunged into the woods,
which in places was thick with undergrowth.
"It's no use to follow her," said Hammond, joining the searchers. "It is
likely she will make a short cut for home, where her father probably is,
and where she can have the wound dressed. That is, if she was really
wounded, which I doubt, from her actions. Perhaps the arrow only struck
in her clothing, and frightened her. When I picked it up and examined
the point, I could see no blood on it."
The archery contest was virtually ended, with Merriwell and the Lake
Lily Club the winners, and no one was in a hurry to go back to the
shooting ground. But it was universally conceded in a little while that
no good could be done by trying to follow one who knew the wilderness
paths as well as any deer that roamed them, for it would be impossible
to overtake her as long as she did not want to be overtaken.
While the boys talked and speculated, Nell Thornton was hastening on
through the laurel scrub, unmindful of the stabbing pain in her
shoulder; and, at the same time, Bruce Browning, wrapped in a heavy coat
and with a handkerchief knotted about his shivering neck, was advancing
slowly and languidly up the path in the direction of the archery
grounds.
"I'm afraid that confounded chill is coming back," Bruce grumbled,
pushing a vine out of his way, "and I suppose I was a fool for leaving
the cottage. I wish I had taken that other path, even if it is farther
around. The bushes are thick enough here to make a squirrel sick, trying
to worm through them. Hello! What does that mean?"
Nell Thornton, who had struck into this path from the woods, came into
view, and was seen to reel and lurch like a boat in a gale.
Browning stopped and stared.
Then he saw her reach out to steady herself by a sapling, and sink down
in an unconscious heap.
"By Jove! she's fainted!" he muttered, stirred by the sight. "She must
be ill or hurt! I wonder who she is?"
He forgot his lazy lethargy, and scrambled up the path with a nimbleness
that would have been surprising to his friends, and which took him to
Nell Thornton's side in a very few moments.
"Blood on her hand and running down her arm!" he declared, with a gasp
of astonishment. "Here's a mystery for you!"
Nell Thornton lay with eyes closed, motionless, and seemingly without
life. To Bruce her condition appeared alarming. He lifted her head, then
let it drop back, and stood up and looked dazedly about, wondering what
he should do. He recollected that he had seen a small stream of water
trickling over the rocks a short distance below.
"Just the thing!" he thought. "I'll carry her down there!"
As if she were a feather weight, he lifted her in his strong arms, and
started down the path, moving in a hurry, now that his anxiety was
thoroughly aroused.
"If the boys should see me now," he groaned, "I'd never hear the last of
it. Luckily, they'll not be apt to see me. No doubt they are whanging
away with their bows up on top of the hill. I wonder how she got hurt?
Could it have been----"
He stopped, and stared into the thin, pallid face.
"Could she have been hit by a wild arrow that missed the target and flew
off into the woods? Heavens! I hope not!"
Down the steep path, slipping, sliding, maintaining his footing with
difficulty, went Bruce Browning, with Nell Thornton in his arms, until
he came to the rivulet he had seen gurgling over the rocks. There he put
her down, as tenderly as if she were a sleeping child, and sought to
make her comfortable by rolling up his coat and tucking it under her
head and shoulders.
This done, he scooped up some of the water in his cap and began to bathe
her hands in it, and to sprinkle it in her face.
But Nell Thornton was so slow to return to consciousness that Bruce was
about to rip up the sleeve of her dress to ascertain the nature of the
wound from which the blood still trickled, when she stirred uneasily.
Thus encouraged, he renewed his efforts, and a little later had the
pleasure of seeing her eyes flutter open.
She stared in a puzzled way up into his face, then tried to get on her
feet.
"Let me help you," Bruce begged, slipping an arm beneath her head.
"Whar--whar am I?" she demanded, putting up a hand protestingly.
"You are hurt, and you fell in the path up there, a little while ago,"
Bruce explained. "I brought you down here by the brook."
She looked at her hand, saw the blood, and made another effort to get on
her feet.
She succeeded this time, standing panting and wild-eyed on the rocks.
"I'm not hurt ter speak on!" she asserted. "I 'low ez how I must hev got
dizzy-like an' fell, but I ain't hurt ter speak on."
She seemed about to start on down the path, but checked herself, with
the feeling that perhaps something in the way of an acknowledgment was
due this handsome stranger, and continued:
"I'm 'bleeged to you. 'Twas a acks'dent, the way it happened. I war
behint the tree, an' they didn't see me tell I stepped out, an' then the
arrer war a-comin', an' it war too late to be holped."
"Then one of the arrows struck you, as I feared!" growled Browning. "Do
you think you are much hurt? Perhaps you had better make an examination.
The wound seems to be bleeding pretty freely."
She drew the sleeve down, as if to hide the telltale color.
"Plenty time fur that when I git home, which, ef I ever git thar, I'd
better be humpin' myself along, too!"
Again she moved as if to start down the path, but was checked by
Browning's words:
"You are in no condition to go alone, Miss--Miss----"
"My name's Nell Thornton," she said, coloring slightly, "ef that is what
you mean. But these hyar mounting people don't waste no breath a-sayin'
of miss an' mister."
Still, Browning could see that she was pleased.
"Miss Thornton," he said, holding the cap, from which the water still
dripped, "permit me to introduce myself. My name is Bruce Browning, and
I belong with Frank Merriwell's party, which arrived in Glendale only
the day before yesterday. We have become members of the Lake Lily
Athletic Club since, and it may be that the arrow which struck you was
shot by one of my friends, for they are taking part in the archery shoot
up on the hill."
It was a very long speech for Bruce Browning, as he himself realized,
but it slipped off his tongue very easily, under the circumstances.
"So I more than ever feel that it is my duty to assist you," he
continued, "and to see that you reach home without further accident."
"I dunno what dad'll say 'bout that," she observed, shyly. "He allus
declar's ez he ain't got no use fur citified people, with thar store
clo'es, an' sich. So I reckon it'd be an uncommon good piece o' hoss
sense ef you'd track back up the hill."
"No, I can't leave you that way," declared Browning, who, looking into
her white face, saw that she was so weak she was again on the point of
falling. "You are in no condition to go on alone, Miss Thornton. I can't
permit it."
Then he squeezed the water out of his cap, got himself into his coat,
and prepared to assist her down the hill and to her home.
Bob Thornton's cabin, the home of Nell Thornton, did not differ
materially in its general aspect from other cabins Bruce Browning had
seen in the mountains, except that it was larger. A bar of light from
the descending sun fell through a wooded notch in the hills and lit up
the small panes of its one window with a ruddy fire. A morning-glory,
with closed petals, clambered up the rough stick-and-mud chimney, as if
trying to hide its unsightliness, and a gourd vine swung its green,
pear-shaped bulbs over the door.
Nell Thornton had seemed to gain strength as the journey continued, and
had not often needed Bruce's helping hand, even where the way was rough.
Now she stopped in the doorway, as if she did not desire him to go
further.
"I'm 'bleeged to ye!" she said, apparently at a loss for words with
which to express her thanks. "My arm ain't hurtin' so much ez it did,
an' dad's a master hand ter fix up a wound like that. I don't doubt
it'll be all right by ter-morrer. I'm sorry you los' so much time
a-troublin' with me."
"Don't mention it," begged Bruce. "I'm glad to have been of assistance."
Then he lifted his cap, and moved grumblingly away.
"Good-by!" she called, timidly.
Bruce turned and faced her.
"Good-by!" he said, again lifting his cap.
He saw her vanish into the cabin, and once more sought the blind path
that led from the cabin up the mountain.
"It will be darker than a stack of black cats before I get back to the
cottages," he growled. "What in thunder makes anybody want to live in
such an out-of-the-way place as this?"
He had almost forgotten the chill which he feared was coming, but now he
again drew the coat collar about his throat, and began to shiver, as he
plodded on.
"That everlasting Arkansas malaria will be the death of me yet!" he
groaned. "I feel just as if a lot of icicles were chasing up and down my
spine. I wonder which one of the fellows it was shot that arrow?"
The sun dropped out of sight, and the shadows gathered quickly in the
hollows of the hills. The exertion of climbing warmed Bruce, bringing
the perspiration out on his face and body. He pushed back the collar of
the coat, and mopped his face. Then went on again, slipping, sliding,
grumbling.
"I thought this path ascended all the time," he growled, peering into
the thickening gloom. "I don't remember this slope, but of course we
crossed it in coming down. These hills and hollows look bewilderingly
alike in this light."
Half an hour later, he came to a dead stop, with the unpleasant feeling
that he had wandered from the right path and was lost.
"Here's a pretty kettle of fish!" he groaned. "I'll take on another
cartload of malaria if I have to lie out in these woods to-night. Well,
it's no use to turn back. I couldn't find Thornton's cabin if I tried."
When he had stumbled on for another provoking half hour, with the
darkness increasing, he came to another halt. A gleam of light, from a
lamp or candle, reached him through the trees.
"I can inquire my way there, if nothing else," he reflected, "and
perhaps if it seems impossible for me to get home, I can find a bed for
the night."
Though still in a grumbling humor, he went on again with a decided
feeling of relief, which changed to one of surprise and bewilderment
when he was near enough the light to make out the manner of house from
which it issued.
He had returned to Bob Thornton's cabin!