Middletown transcript., 1912-03-23


as to the awful potentialities Of the
tempest than she could possibly imag
ine. She must be warned at once
she must leave the canon and get up
on the higher ground without delay.
His duty was plain and yet he did II
not He could not. The pressure
upon him was not yet strong enough.
A half dozen times as he watched
her deliberately sitting there eating,
he opened his mouth to cry to her,
yet he could not bring himself to 1t.
A strange timidity oppressed him;
halted him, held him back. A man
cannot stay away Eve years from men
and women and be himself with them
in the twinkling Of an eye. And when
to that instructive and acquired reluc-
lance against which he struggled in
vain, he added the assurance that
whatever his message he would be
unwelcome on account Of what had.
gone before; he could not force him
self to go to her or even to call to
her, not yet. He would keep her un-
der surveillance, however, and II the
worst came he could intervene in time
to rescue her. He counted without
his cost, his usual judgment bewil-
cered. So he followed her through
the trees and down the bank.
Now he was so engrossed in her
and so agitated that his caution slept,
his experience was forgotten. The
storm in his own breast was so great
that 1t overshadowed the storm brew
ing above. Her way was easier than
his and he had fallen some distance
behind when suddenly there rushed
upon him the fact that frightful and
unlocked for cloudburst was about to
occur above their heads. A lightning
fash and a thunder clap at last ar.
rested his attention. Then, but not
until then, he flung everything to the
winds and amid the sullen and almost
continuous peals Of thunder he sent
cry after cry toward her which were
lost in the tremendous diapason of
sound that echoed and re-echoed
through the riffs of the mountains.
Wait" he cried again and again.
Come up higher. Get out Of the
canon. You'll be drowned"
But he had waited too long. The
storm had developed too rapidly; she
was too far ahead of and beneath him.
She heard nothing but the sound Of a
voice, shrill, menacing, fraught with
terror for her, not a word distinguish
able; scarcely to her disturbed soul
even a human voice, It seemed like
the wierd cry of some wild spirit Of
the storm. 1t sounded to her over
wrought nerves so utterly inhuman
that she only ran the faster.
The canon swerved and then dou-
bled back, but he knew its direction.
Losing sight Of her for the moment he
plunged straight ahead through the
trees, cutting OF the bend, leaping
with superhuman agility and strength
over rocks and logs until he reached
a point where the rift narrowed be-
tween two walls and ran deeply. There
and then the heavens opened and the
floods came and beat into the open
nav Of that vast crevice and filed 1t
in an instant.
! As the deluge came roaring down,
bearing onward the sweepings and |
scourings of the mountains, he caught !
a glimpse of her white desperate face |
rising, falling, now disappearing, now
coming into view again, in the foamy
midst Of the torrent. He ran to the |
cliff bank and throwing aside his gun
he scrambled down the wall to a GER
tain shelf Of the rock over which the
rising water broke thinly. Ordinarily
It was twenty feet above the creek
bed. Bracing himself against jagged
projection he waited praying. The
canon was here so narrow that he
could have leaped to the other side
and yet 1t was too narrow for him to
reach her If the water did not sweep
her toward his feet. It was all done in
il second. Fortunately projection on
the other side threw the force Of the
torrent toward him and with It came
the woman.
She was almost spent She had
been struck by a log upheaved by
some mighty wave, her hands were
moving feebly, her eyes were closed,
she was drowning, dying, but indomit-
ably battling on. He stopped down
and as surge lifted her, he threw
his arm around her waist and then he
braced himself against the rock to
sustain the full thrust Of the mighty
food. AS he seized her she gave way
suddenly, as. II after having done all
that she could there was now nothing
left but to trust herself to his hand
and Gods. She hung a dead weight
on his arm in the ravening water
which dragged and tore at her madly.
He was a man Of giant strength,
but the struggle babe fair to. be too
much even for him. It seemed as If
the mountain behind him was giving
way He set his teeth, he tried des-
perately to hold on, he thrust out his
right hand, holding her with the 9TH
er one, and clawed at the dripping
rock in vain. In a moment the tor
rent mastered him and when 1t did so
It seized him with fury and threw him
like a stone from a sling into the
Seething vortex Of the mid-stream.
But in all this he did not, or would
not, release her.
Such was the swiftness Of the mo,
ion with which they were swept
downward that he had little need to
win, his only effort was to keep his
lead above water and to keep from
being dashed against the logs that
umbled end over end or whirled
Iideways, or were jammed into cIus-
ers only to burst out on every hand.
lie struggled furiously to keep him
Ieh from being overwhelmed in the
madness, and what was
harder, to keep the lifeless woman in
lis arms from being stricken or
vrenched away. He knew that below
he narrows where the canon widened
he water would subside, the awful
ury Of the rain would presently cease.
he could steer clear Of the rocks in
he broad he might win to land with
eF.
The chances against him were thou