Omaha daily bee., 1899-12-03

! just walk up and fall down as we did. 1t
wouldn't do, you know one might hit
wrong. You came pretty near it,
| 1t was perfectly true, but 1t made me seem
! painfully stupid to have to take such plain
sense second hand, and from a young girl at
that. We could not get out, that was clear
enough. 1t was equally clear, when l con-
sidered it, that they could not get down to
us without returning to the house for ropes
or ladders, for no sane man would deliber-
! ately take such leap in that pitchy dark
ness.
1t was clear to me now where we were.
We were adrft upon the frozen bed of one
of those mountain streams about whose sum
mer music my sister had discoursed in her
letters home. l remembered well how she
had made them leap from rock to rock.
hide themselves in granite caverns, "and
then burst from their brief restraint" all Of
which had sounded well in the letters, but
when it came to sliding down this ice-clad
winding idyl, with delicate young lady for
your companion, band of desperadoes
securing along the mountain side in search
of you, no coat on your back and the mem
ory of two dead men and a dead dog behind
you, making the thought of your probable
venture into the next world something 10
be avoided, If possible, l could have wished
the "windings in and OUT a shade less fam
tastic and would have entirely omitted that
bounding from rock to rock" had choice
been given me.
AS for my companion, nothing could eX-
ceed her cheerful Indifference to our sur
roundings. and although l knew perfectly
well that this condition rose entirely from
her utter ignorance of all the common laws,
rules and usages she was trampling under
bar hot I tn in N
shrieked at her in every chill breath that
blew about our shivering forms, and threat
ened her with every clnging snowdrop which
fastened itself upon her garments, and she
she said Dear me, how sharp to the
icy wind, and bent her head to meet its
force, and tapped off the clinging snow with
graceful petulance.
How many times in our wild course down
the streams bed, only a hairs breadth
separated us from certain destruction, i will
not attempt to guess. Certainly we must
often have been so near to the dark river
that its murmurlngs might have reached our
ears. We were a snowslide an avalanche,
anything you please but human beings, and l,
for one became accustomed to travelling con-
siderable stretches upon the back of my
head, while that detested shawl | dignified
into a sort of pad for Miss Brandon in some
of our straghter shoots.
] don't know that we Travelled very far
this way; / am quite certain that we did
not, but ! have been to other continents
and back since with less seeming eXpendi-
ture of time, and have never before or
since viewed with such joy any inanimate
object as / did the light which suddenly
appeared before us not many yards away.
poor, mean light 1t was, coming from
some smoky lamp, / fancied, and shining
through the window of a miners hut; but no
blaze OF glory ever thrilled my heart with
such gratitude,
Look, look, Miss Brandon" cried and
then we both fell again, to alight upon COM
paratively level ground, not far from the
hut and its cheering light But when l
raised my companion from the ground, she
lay in my arms limp and motionless cut
on her forehead, and dark stream trickllng
down over her still features.
| thought her dead, and great madness
seemed to possess me. Snatching her close
against me, l ran, with no sense of her
weight, through dooryard thickly strewn
with snow-coyered objects, like Jumps OF
wood old buckets and other litter. Stun
bling among them as l did, | came to no
stop, but bounding blindly over the last
thing In my path / brought my knuckles
upon the door with a sudden, loud thump
which | had not the humanity to realize
must bring the heart into the throat OF any
solitary dweler in that lonely place
No answer came l grew furious, and from
pounding my knuckles, fell to hammerng
with my fists, and then to kicking all the
time shouting for admittance in a voice
so hoarse with fatigue and excitement that
II must have sounded like the oroaking OF
some asthmatic madman. fercer kick
than all at length brought the door open
with an explosion Of wood and nails that
made even the insensible girl in my arms