WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN KNOWN BEFORE
The thickening mist of snow shut off all sight of the shore when the
school teacher was ten yards out upon the ice. Every few yards he
stopped and shouted down wind, believing that the lost child would
never be able to beat her way against it, and would naturally drift
with the storm. In this supposition he was right. She had drifted
farther out upon the ice than Nelson Haley believed possible. If she
had been gone only an hour from the view of the girl at Mr. Cross
Moore’s, the school teacher thought she must still be not far from
the edge of the cove. He began soon to zigzag across the ice, wading
through the soft-packed snow, sometimes almost losing his own sense of
direction.
From the heights above the wind shrieked down upon him, and the snow
seemed doing its best to bury Nelson Haley under a clinging white
coverlet. Not that he was at all affrighted at first. To fight a
snowstorm was merely fun for him.
He very soon thought, however, that there was serious danger for the
missing child. He wished that he had gotten together a party to make
this search with him. One searcher seemed very helpless in this fast
gathering blizzard. He made small progress, and feared that he might
pass little Lottie without seeing her.
Beaten down by the gale the child could easily be covered with the
drifts and lie undiscovered until it was too late to save her. The
possibility of this tragedy horrified Nelson Haley.
Poor little Lottie, Janice Day’s friend and his own! It was because
of Lottie that the young man had so recently begun to doubt if he had
quite understood Janice during the past few months.
If Janice did not care for him at all--and Nelson had honestly believed
that was a fact--why had she come to nurse him when he was ill? He had
not asked Mrs. Beasely point-blank if what Lottie had said was true. He
knew too well the widow’s liking for gossip.
But he had dovetailed together a word dropped here and another there,
until he had secured all the evidence necessary to assure him that
little Lottie had “let the cat out of the bag”--childishly unconscious
that she had betrayed a secret. While he was delirious, Janice had
been his close attendant. When he had turned the corner on the road to
health, she had refrained from coming near him.
Nelson could not understand it; but he had to accept the fact as it was
for the time being. He longed to get Janice alone and to find out the
truth of the matter; but every time he tried to do so something seemed
to intervene. And Frank Bowman was always around, too!
These thoughts did not keep Nelson from shouting at intervals; but
his reiterated shouts did not reach little Lottie’s ears for a long
time. Confused by the storm, and utterly helpless to breast it, Lottie
Drugg probably did the wisest thing she could have done under the
circumstances.
She sat down in the midst of it and cried!
Ordinarily to give in to the gale and sink before it would be a
perilous thing indeed; but in this case it kept the child from going
too far to be rescued. She had not got out of the more or less
sheltered cove. Had she done so, the gale would have swept her off her
feet and buried her under the drifts.
But Nelson, forcing his way through the heaped-up snow, shouting
now and then, staggering on with determination, his own back to the
gale, finally stumbled upon a heap that seemed of strange formation.
He stooped, scratched away the snow, and seized the half-unconscious
Lottie in his arms.
“Child! child!” he cried. “How did you come here? You’d have been
frozen in a little while.”
“Don’t! don’t wake me up, Nelson Haley,” she whined. “I want to go to
sleep. Lottie’s so tired. And I could--couldn’t fi-find my echo after
all!” and she began to whimper.
The mention of the echo reminded Nelson that there was a better way
back than facing the storm across the open ice of the cove. Here was
the wooded point not far to the right as he faced the town again.
“We’ll find shelter under those trees, if nothing else,” muttered the
school teacher, and with the little girl clinging around his neck, a
dead weight, he stumbled on until he found the broken line of the shore.
The snow was banking up upon it in a great windrow; but Nelson plunged
through this barrier and reached the sheltered grove. A low, sweeping
spruce offered them complete roofing from the storm. Nelson put the
little girl down, broke off some dead branches, and quickly started a
fire.
When it was snapping brightly, he removed Lottie’s shoes and stockings
and restored the circulation to her feet. Then she woke up and declared
herself to be “all warm and comfy--and couldn’t we go home to supper,
for I am drefful hungry?”
Nelson knew well enough that the storm would not cease for many hours;
they could not possibly remain here, for no searching party would know
where to look for them. They must get home as soon as possible, and
before it grew too dark to see.
He knew that by going up the point, through the wood, he would strike
an old wood road through Mr. Cross Moore’s property to the place where
the railroad bridge was already half builded over the brook. A sawmill
had been put into this timber a few years before, and most of the
well-grown trees had been cut and sawed into planks.
Therefore, when he staggered out of the spruce growth with little
Lottie in his arms, he found himself in conflict with the gale, which
had a good sweep through the open woodland.
It was still light enough for Nelson to see the outline of objects.
This was a path familiar to him, for he and Janice and little Lottie
had often walked here the spring before.
The snow underfoot made the traveling very hard; nor was Nelson as
strong as he had been before his illness at Thanksgiving. He had
to stop frequently, turn his back to the gale, and get his breath,
hovering Lottie before him, encircled in his arms. Then he would plunge
on again, plowing through the beating storm--fairly fighting for the
gain of each ten yards as though battling an actual enemy.
In one of these resting spells he thought he heard a cry. It was faint
and seemed to come a long way down wind. He rose and answered it; but
he doubted if his voice could have carried very far against the gale.
He grabbed up Lottie again and plunged on. Somebody was either
searching for them, or----
Could it be another person in trouble? “I guess I’m right in the game
of rescue to-night,” muttered the school teacher. “I wonder who this
is?”
He put all his strength into another call. An answering cry sounded
almost above his head.
“Sounds as though he were in a flying machine!” gasped Nelson, staring
up into the smother of snow.
And then suddenly he discovered that there was the bulk of some rigid
object up there, above his head. He looked up at it in surprise. What
could it be? How far had they come?
“Hello!” The muffled voice came down to him, and Nelson, setting Lottie
down once more, yelled up in return:
“Hello, yourself! Where are you?”
“Up on the bridge!” cried the other voice, this time more clearly.
There was a little lull in the gale and Nelson immediately understood.
“We’re at the bridge--I declare we are!” he said. “And that is Frank
Bowman, the civil engineer.”
“Mr. Bowman! I know him, too,” cried Lottie. “Do you s’pose he’s hungry
for supper--and co-cold?”
“I’ll bet he is!” laughed Nelson. He shouted up to the civil engineer
again: “What are you roosting up there for? Don’t you know enough to go
in when it snows?”
“I declare, it doesn’t look as though I did, does it?” repeated Frank
Bowman, rather grimly. “But to tell the truth, I’m in trouble.”
“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Nelson, trying to see him
through the curtain of falling snow.
“I’ve hurt my arm. I don’t think it is broken, but it’s wrenched badly
and I can’t use it to help myself down from this trestle,” replied
Frank Bowman. “I got up here to secure some tools that one of the men
must have left in a knee of the structural work. Pretty near fell off
and broke my foolish neck, for I slipped on an icy girder. And in
saving myself, I hurt my arm. If you can give me some help, I’ll be
much obliged.”
“In a minute!” cried the school teacher. “I’ve an encumbrance here in
the shape of a little lost girl.”
“I ain’t lost!” shouted Lottie. “It’s only my echo that’s lost. I
couldn’t find it. Did you see my echo, Mr. Bowman?”
“Bless your heart, Lottie! I haven’t seen anything up here for two
hours but the angels shaking out their feather-beds,” returned the
civil engineer, laughing rather grimly.
“Oo-oo!” squealed Lottie. “If the angels hafter sleep on such cold
feathers, don’t you think they’d get frostbite? Mr. Haley rubbed my
feets ’cause he was ’fraid I’d get frostbite.”
“You’ve been out some time in this storm, then?” demanded the civil
engineer, as Nelson climbed up to reach him.
“Longer than I care to be out,” replied Nelson. “Come on! let’s have
your foot. I’ll guide it. You can hang on with your right hand. I’ll
steady you.”
The two young men were not long in getting down to the ground. Bowman
was no more breathless than the school teacher. But his arm hurt
greatly and he had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out.
“Now, are you all right?” asked Nelson. “We’d ought to hurry on.”
“I--I guess so,” gasped Frank Bowman. “I--I’m pretty near all in, I am
afraid. You had best go on ahead with the little girl, Mr. Haley.”
Nelson saw that the exposure and pain had really pulled the other down.
Up to this time he had seen very little of Frank Bowman. Not even when
he called on Annette did he meet Frank at the Inn. To tell the truth,
owing to his belief that Frank was deeply interested in Janice Day, the
school teacher had not cared to know the young civil engineer at all.
He could not be unkind to the fellow, and it was plain that Frank faced
the storm that charged down the hill with difficulty. Nelson came close
to him and put Frank’s good arm over his own shoulder; the other hung
useless at the young engineer’s side.
“Come on! we’ll push on together--won’t we, Lottie?” he cried,
cheerily. “Hang on to my other hand, Lottie. We won’t be long in
getting there.”
It was Nelson’s cheerfulness that kept them up to the mark. He had to
carry Lottie the last hundred yards, as well as brace Frank Bowman.
The store of Hopewell Drugg was a scene of much excitement when they
burst in from the snowy world without. Hopewell had returned, and he
and Miss ’Rill were much troubled about the absence of little Lottie.
Walky Dexter was preparing to go out and rouse the neighbors to search
for the child.
“Wal, for the Land o’ Pity’s sake!” exclaimed Walky. “D’yeou young
fellers reckon on this bein’ a nice time ter take a young lady out for
a walk down Lovers’ Lane? Humph! looks like it’d been snowing where you
hev been.”
“Don’t you try to be funny, Walky,” advised Nelson, helping Frank to
the stove. “Where’s your team?”
“I put Josephus inter Hopewell’s stable. An’ he’s a-goin’ to stay
there,” said Walky, promptly. “’Tain’t fit for a human bein’ to be
out--let erlone a hoss.”
“It’s all right, Haley,” said Frank, quietly. “I’ll have my wind back
in a moment, and then I’ll walk down to the Inn, and call in a doctor.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Nelson, promptly.
The two young men started off through the storm again in a few minutes.
Somehow the accident to Frank seemed to draw them together.
“Seems to me you were taking a risk over on that half-completed bridge
alone,” remarked Nelson. “Are you anxious about it?”
“That’s it,” said Frank, with a deep sigh. “I’m just that. You see, it
means a lot to me. It’s the first piece of construction work I have
done for the Vermont Central; and if anything went wrong with it this
winter I’d maybe be called down for it by the Board.
“Besides,” he added, a little diffidently, “I’m wanting to make good
for the sake of somebody else.”
“Your sister?” queried Nelson, with a somewhat sharp look at him.
“Annette? Humph! No. I don’t fancy that she ever thinks whether I am
doing well in my business or not. You know what Annette is, Haley.”
“Well,” said the school teacher, noncommittally.
“You ought to; and I guess Jim Brainard knows. I don’t blame Jim for
fighting shy of Annette. She wouldn’t treat him right. You know Jim,
don’t you?” proceeded Frank.
“He was in my class at college,” returned Nelson. “I believe he is
very, very fond of your sister. But he is obstinate, too. He’d never
say the first word toward making up. I’ve hoped that Annette would see
her mistake and make the first advance.”
“She’s about ready to--you take it from me. She’s tired of playing her
little game here. You see, of late she’s kept all the fellows at a
distance, except you, Mr. Haley. And you knew her too well to fall for
her,” added this particularly frank brother.
They went on down High Street together, and as they approached the Inn
Frank blurted out:
“I’ve always admired you, Mr. Haley, although you haven’t been very
friendly. You see, you have won your spurs--you’ve got a standing;
while I’m just working to make good. It’s true, Vice-president
Harrison, of the V. C., has been very friendly to me. I--I’m acquainted
with his family----”
“Vice-president Harrison has got a mighty pretty daughter,” remarked
Nelson, and then added suddenly, “Do you know her?”
“She--she’s the one I’m trying to make good for,” blurted out Frank
Bowman. “Here we are. I’m a thousand times obliged to you for your
help. And I hope you and I will have time to get better acquainted.”
He wrung Nelson Haley’s hand with his own good one and bolted into
the Inn. Despite the snow and the wind, Nelson stood still for some
moments trying to adjust his mind to the new set of ideas that Frank’s
words had suggested.
“Trying to make good with Miss Harrison!” he murmured. “Miss Harrison!
And I thought it was Janice!”