Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1907-08-30
and glance into MS race.

quick catcnlng OF breath, reading mat
which she could not clearly interpret
in his shocked expression.
Nothing Of consequence and he
family endeavored to smile. Il sup
pose must have been dreaming also,
and most unpleasantly. No; please do
not look down; 1t would only cause
your head to reel, and our upward
climb is not yet completed. Do you
feel strong enough now to make an
other attempt to reach the top"
Can WEI" she questioned helplessly.
I'VE can, simply because we must"
and his white teeth shut together firm
ly. There is no possibility Of retrac-
ing our steps downward, but with the
help Of this daylight we surely ought
to be able to discover some path lead
ing up"
He rose cautiously to his feet, press
ing her more closely against the face
Of the cliff, thus holding her in CON-
parative safety while preventing her
from glancing back into the dizzy
chasm. The most difficult portion Of
their journey was apparently just be-
fore them. More than once they tot
tered on the very brink, held to safety
merely by desperate clutchings at rock
or shrub, yet never once did the man
loosen his guarding grasp Of his CON-
panion. Pressed tightly against the
smooth rock, feeling for every crevice,
every slightest irregularity Of surface,
making use Of creeping tendril or
dead branch, daring death along every
inch Of the way, these two creepers
at last attained the opening to little
gulley, and sank down, faint and trem-
bling. The girl glanced furtively at
him, the long lashes shadowing the
expression Of her lowered eyes. In
spite Of deep prejudice she felt i'm
PEELED to like this man; he accom-
plished things, and he didn't talk.
1t was nothing more serious than a
hard and toilsome climb after that, a
continuous struggle testing every mus
Gle, straining every sinew, causing
both to sink down again and again,
painting and exhausted, no longer stim-
ulated by imminent peril. The narrow
cleft they followed led somewhere
away from the exposed front of the
precipice, yet arose steep and jagged
before them. 1t was bridged finally by
cedar trunk, which Hampton
wrenched from out its rocky foothold,
and the two crept cautiously forward,
to emerge where the sunlight rested
golden at the summit. They sank face
downward in the short grass, barely
conscious that they had finally won
their desperate passage.
Slowly Hampton succeeded in up
lifting his tired body and his Keeling
head, until he could sit partially up
right and gaze unsteadily about. The
girl yet remained motionless at his
feet, her thick hair, a mass of red gold
in the sunshine, completely concealing
her face, her slender figure quivering
to sobs of utter exhaustion. Before
them stretched the barren plain,
brown, desolate, drear, offering in all
its wide expanse no hopeful promise
of rescue. With hand partially shad-
ing his aching eyes from the binding
glare, the man studied its every ex-
posed feature, his face hardening
again into lines of stern determine.
ton. The girl stirred from her posi-.
ton, finging back her heavy hair
with one hand, and looking up into his
face with eyes that read at once his
disappointment.
"Have-have you any water left"
she asked at last, her lips parched and
burning as il from fever.
He shook the canteen dangling for
gotten at his SIDE There may be a
few drops" he said, handing 1t to her,
although scarcely removing his fixed
gaze from of that dreary plain. I'VE
shall be obliged to make those trees
yonder; there ought to be water there
in plenty, and possibly we may strike
a trail"
There was nothing more said be-
tween them. Like two automatons,
they started of across the parched
grass, the heat waves rising and fall
ing as they stumbled forward. Neither
realized until then how thoroughly
that hard climb up the rocks, the
strain OF continued peril, and the long
abstinence from food had Slapped their
strength, yet to remain where they
were meant certain death; all hope
found its center amid those distant
reckoning trees.
No one can explain later how such
deeds are ever accomplished; how the
tortured soul controls physical weak
ness, and compels strained sinews to
perform the miracle of action when
all ambition has died. Hampton sure
ly must have both seen and known, for
ne kept his direction, yet never after
wards did he regain any clear memory
Of II.