QUEEN OF THE COUNTERFEITERS.
It seemed an act of madness.
A moment after she made the frightful leap a man came rushing to the
edge of the ledge and clutched at her.
He was too late.
Already she was shooting downward toward the depths of the ravine.
With no small difficulty he saved himself from toppling over the brink.
Down in the ravine two boys gazed in unutterable horror at the falling
form of the girl.
Then they beheld what seemed like a marvel.
To a certain extent the umbrella acted like a parachute, and, assisted
by the girl's clothing, served to check the swiftness of her fall.
Down she came into the ravine, alighting within a few rods of the boys,
collapsing in a motionless heap, while the huge government umbrella,
which must have been stolen from its former owners, turned bottom up and
rolled a few feet away.
Frank was the first to recover. With a low cry, he sprang toward the
girl, knelt beside her, and lifted her in his arms.
"Is she dead?" fluttered Bart, over his friend's shoulder.
"I do not think she struck hard enough," said Frank. "No--she moves. She
is alive!"
The beautiful girl, whose face was very pale, opened her eyes, caught
her breath convulsively, looked straight past Frank, saw the face of the
other boy, and murmured:
"Bartley!"
In a moment Bart Hodge was on his knees, and he almost tore her from
Frank's hands.
"Give her to me!" he panted. "She knows me now! She will not refuse to
recognize me here!"
Seeing how agitated his friend was, Frank surrendered the girl, asking:
"Are you severely harmed, Miss Isban?"
She looked at him in a bewildered way, but did not reply.
Bending over her, Bart echoed the question:
"Are you severely harmed, Miss Melburn?"
"I--I think not," she replied, faintly. "I lost my breath, and I feared
I would lose my hold on the handle of the umbrella before I reached the
bottom. I did not strike very hard, but everything seemed to float away
when I knew I was at the bottom."
"It is wonderful--marvelous! What made you do such a mad thing?"
"The horrid wretch who insisted on making love to me! I became awfully
afraid of him. He was pursuing me."
"But it seemed like a leap to certain death."
"I didn't care much. I was crazy with fear. I saw this old umbrella,
and, remembering how I had once seen a man descend by means of a
parachute from a balloon, I caught it up, rushed out of the cabin,
slamming the door in his face, opened it, and jumped when he came
hurrying after me."
"The brute!" grated Bart.
"He is a brute!" echoed the girl, "I had rather die than fall into his
power again!"
"You shall not fall into his power. We will protect you."
"But how does it happen you are here?" she asked, bewildered. "I cannot
understand that."
"This is no time or place for explanations," Frank cut in. "That fellow
has disappeared from the cliff, but he will be back. We must get out of
this."
To this Bart fully agreed, and he lifted the girl to her feet. She was
rather weak, and so she was forced to lean on his shoulder.
They had moved but a little way when a shout came from the cliff, and
they saw three men looking down at them. These men were armed, and Frank
saw them taking aim with rifles.
"Look out!" he shouted. "They're going to send bullets after us!"
A second later the men on the cliff began shooting, the white smoke
puffing from their rifles, the reports of which awoke the echoes.
The bullets whistled about the trio in the ravine.
"Run!" shouted Frank, wheeling and flinging his rifle to his shoulder.
He sent several bullets up at the cliff and then turned and dashed after
Bart, who had lifted the girl in his arms, and made a rush for a place
of safety.
The bullets spat spitefully against the rocks as he ran, whistled about
him, dislodged pebbles and tore up little sprays of earth, but not one
of them touched him.
The trio reached a turn in the ravine and passed beyond view of the
cliff, so they were safe from the bullets of the men above.
For some moments they paused, panting from their exertions.
The girl looked at her companions in admiration.
"You are strong and brave," she said. "I feel that you will save me."
"But we are not out of the woods yet," said Frank. "Those fellows will
be sure to give us a chase."
"How can they get down from the cliff?" asked Bart.
"There is a way to do that, you may be sure. As soon as we get our
breath we must hasten on. We will be fortunate if we strike Blake, Long,
and Jones without delay."
They did not wait long before hastening forward. The boys took the girl
between them, both assisting her, sometimes carrying her over the worst
places.
Her strength came back to her, after a time, and they were surprised by
her skill and fleetness of foot.
Out of the ravine they made their way, and dropped over into the other,
beginning to feel relieved by the non-appearance of their enemies.
But they were not to escape without a further encounter.
Five minutes after entering the second ravine they heard a clatter of
hoofs behind them. There was no time to get out of the ravine, and it
happened that they were unable to find a place of concealment in time to
escape observation.
Six men came riding madly toward them, sending up a wild shout when they
were observed.
"Behind these rocks here!" cried Frank. "We must stand them off. It's
our only show. Put the girl behind that large one, so that she will be
safe from bullets."
Bart was desperate. His teeth showed, his face was very pale, and he
grated:
"They shall not touch her again--I vow they shall not touch her!"
Behind the bowlders plunged the trio, just as a bullet whistled over
Frank's head.
Dropping on one knee behind a stone on which he could rest his elbow,
our hero brought the butt of his Winchester to his shoulder, and began
to work the weapon.
Even then Frank was not quite ready to shoot straight at the breasts of
human beings, and so his first five shots brought down three of the
horses, throwing the band into confusion.
Bart was more desperate, as his words indicated, for he half snarled:
"Don't kill the poor horses! Shoot the human brutes!"
Then he began firing, and, if his nerve had been as steady as Frank's,
scarcely one of the six would have escaped. As it was, he quickly
wounded two of them.
This was a reception the men had not counted on. Those whose horses had
not been shot made haste to rein about and dash away, one with a
dangling arm, while the others leaped to the shelter of the rocks.
"Now they have us cornered!" came fiercely from Bart's lips. "If you had
not wasted your bullets, Frank, we would have the advantage now."
"Don't you care," laughed Frank, lightly. "We are hotter company than
they were looking for, and I rather fancy we'll be able to give them a
jolly good racket."
Frank was in a reckless mood. Danger ever seemed to affect him thus. A
bullet tore his hat from his head, but he picked it up, laughing, as if
it were all sport.
For some minutes the boys and their enemies popped away at each other,
and then, from the opposite direction along the ravine, came the sound
of galloping horses.
"Here come our friends!" cried Bart, joyfully. "We are all right now!
Those chaps will have to take to their heels."
Suddenly a sharp whistle rang through the ravine from above, and the
party below answered in a similar manner.
The boys looked at each other in astonishment.
"Shield yourselves as far as possible in both directions," cried Frank.
"If I am not mistaken, we have enemies above and below!"
Crouching behind the rocks, they saw the second party dash into
view--four in all. Three of them were men, but their leader was a girl,
who wore a mask over her face.
"There!" exclaimed Frank--"there is the queen of the counterfeiters!"