A PERILOUS GLIDE
As she dashed after her companion, Marion felt a dizzy wave of faintness
sweep over her. With her knees all but refusing to support her, she
seemed in danger of plunging head foremost down the mountain side. By a
supreme effort she regained control of herself and, still gripping the
long squirrel rifle, followed on as best she could.
After stumbling through brush and over logs, with the baying of hounds
growing louder in their ears, they came to the bed of a small ravine.
There was water here and it offered better going. Besides, it might throw
the hounds off the trail. So, sometimes to their ankles and sometimes to
their knees in water, they plunged forward.
“Keep the rifle dry,” Patience panted back. “We may need it.”
“Would—would you shoot?” Marion asked.
“I’d shoot anything to save Hallie.”
The child, now half awake, was crying softly to herself.
Suddenly Patience came to a standstill.
“Listen!” she whispered.
Marion did listen, and what she heard caused her to shrink back in fear.
Above the baying of the hounds and the shouts of men who had doubtless
discovered that Hallie was gone, came the sound of water as it rushed
over the cliff to dash upon the rocks far below. So near did it seem that
Marion shrank back in fear lest she be washed over the precipice.
“Blocked!” she whispered.
“Here,” said Patience, “you take Hallie. Give me the rifle. Now come on.
It may not be too late.” She went scrambling up the bank of the ravine.
Twice she slipped and seemed about to fall back, but each time grasped
the friendly branch of some shrub for support. Many times she held out a
helping hand to the other less experienced climber.
At last with a deep breath, Patience leaped upon the crest of the ridge.
“Listen!” she whispered. “The hounds! They’ve lost the scent. The water
did that. There’s a chance yet. C’mon!”
So weary were her limbs, so spent her strength, that Marion felt she
would rather lie down and die than to go on, but the thought of the
innocent child she protected gave her new strength. So down the other
side of the ridge they dashed.
“Here’s hoping for better luck this time,” sighed Patience as she parted
the bushes that lined the next ravine. Hardly had she thrust her right
foot forward than she slipped, then started gliding downward. Only a
fortunate grab at an overhanging bough saved her from a fall.
“What is it?” asked Marion.
“It’s a skidway for logs,” whispered Patience, struggling to regain her
footing. “It’s our chance. We’ll have to be careful, awful careful, but
it will take us to the river. Mebby down there in the bottoms there’s
some one who’ll help us.”
With a few well chosen words she explained to her companion that when the
white wood timber had been cut down from the mountains some years
previous the woodsmen had felled trees into the ravine and having trimmed
the branches from them had formed of them a steep chute down which
thousands of logs had been sent gliding and booming to the river.
“It’s slippery,” the mountain girl warned, “but if we are careful we can
make it. Hold Hallie with one hand, hug the bank and cling to branches
with the other. I’ll go before you. If you slip I’ll try to stop you.”
Then in silence, foot by foot, yard by yard, rod by rod, they made their
way down the treacherous pathway. Now they came upon a moss-grown portion
that was safe as a sidewalk, and now there lay before them the shining
whiteness of logs over which water had run until they were smooth as
polished mahogany. Gliding, climbing, faltering, they made their way
downward.
“Listen!” whispered Patience at last. “The hounds! They’re on our trail
again.”
Then sudden disaster from a new field threatened. At a slight bend in the
ravine they came upon a log chute. A great quantity of debris—twigs,
rotten limbs, leaves and dead grass had collected in the chute and the
whole lay directly in the path. As they climbed confidently upon it the
whole mass broke away and the next moment, like children on a pillow in a
play chute, they were gliding downward.
Faster, faster, with fear tugging at their hearts, they flew downward.
With no power to help themselves, dumb with apprehension they sat there,
sensing brush and trees rushing past them, feeling the sharp cut of
leaves on their cheeks until Marion found her tongue to scream:
“Patience, are we going into the river?”
“If—if nothing happens first,” stammered the mountain girl, for the first
time truly frightened.
“Can you swim?”
“Yes, can you?”
“Yes. Listen, Patience. We are older, we can stand much. Hallie is a
small child. The cold of the river will kill her. Take off your cape and
make it into a ball. Try to keep it dry. I’ll do the best I can to
protect her. Somehow we’ll make shore. We—”
At that instant her lips were sealed by the sight that burst upon her
startled eyes. Apparently directly beneath them, its silently sweeping
waters yellow and swollen by recent rains, lay the river and upon it,
having just emerged from behind a cloud, shone the moon.
The perils that lay before the two girls and their small charge, though
great enough, were not so imminent as they had appeared. A sudden turn in
the chute brought them to a more gradual slope. When at last their
cushion of debris floated out upon the river, so slight was the splash it
made that it seemed hard to believe that they had reached the end of
their perilous glide to safety. But there was still danger, for all too
soon their frail raft was water-logged and sinking.
“Remember the cape,” cautioned Marion as, with her left hand holding
little Hallie tightly upon what was left of the raft, she struck out into
the dark, chilling waters.
“Let—let’s keep together,” she called through chattering teeth. “It—it’s
going to be hard, but we can make it. Let—let’s try for the other shore.”
Patience struck boldly out before her.
In spite of Marion’s best efforts to protect the child, she was getting
wet. She began to cry. The cry wrenched the older girl’s heart. “If the
water makes my teeth chatter, what must it mean to her!” she thought.
“Look!” she called to Patience. “What’s that off to the right?”
“Looks like a log, a saw log. Ought we try for it?”
“Yes.”
Instantly the course was changed. A moment later they were clambering
aboard a great log of white wood that buoyed them up as easily as a boat.
Sitting astride the log, Marion wrapped Patience’s warm dry cape about
the child. Hardly a moment had elapsed before her crying ceased.
Of all the strange experiences that had come to Marion, this was the most
weird. To have escaped from hounds and kidnappers with a child, to have
come gliding down here in such a strange manner, to find herself sitting
astride a huge log surrounded by black, rushing waters, and gliding
steadily forward to an unknown destination, this was adventure of the
most stirring kind. But Marion found little enough time for such
reflections. Now that she had come to a time of inaction she began to
realize how cold the water and night air were. She was seized with such a
fit of shivering that she feared she would be shaken off the log.
“The wat—the water’s better than this,” she chattered, yet for the sake
of the peacefully sleeping child she decided to endure the torture as
long as possible.
Trees and bushes along the river’s bank swept by. A dog at some cabin
barked. Off in the far distance a light flickered, then went out. The
cold was becoming easier to bear. She was growing drowsy. She wanted to
sleep. Sleep—yes, that was what she needed. Sleep, one wink of sleep. Her
head fell upon her breast. The cold was overcoming her, but she did not
realize it.
She dreamed she had left the log, to find a roaring fire right by the
river’s bank, by which she was warming herself. Suddenly a jolt which
almost threw her from the log rudely brought her back to life.
“Wha—what is it!” she exclaimed, gripping Patience with one hand and
clinging frantically to the sleeping child with the other.
“We’ve gone aground,” said Patience. “If we’re careful we can get
ashore.”
Three minutes later, beside a clump of paw-paw bushes, they were wringing
the water from their garments.
“I saw a light just over yonder,” said Patience. “We’d better try to find
it.”
A very few steps and they were out of the brush and on a well beaten
road. A quarter mile down this road they came suddenly upon a broad
clearing, in the midst of which were three large white buildings.
“A school!” exclaimed Marion. “The mission school! Oh, we are safe!”
For a moment, worn out as she was by over-exertion, excitement and cold,
she was obliged to battle with an almost overwhelming desire to drop in
her tracks. Her splendid will, however, stood her in good stead and with
a firm “Let’s go on,” she led the way.